by Kris Ripper
Technically none of the fruit was even in season, though one of the great things about California was year-round access to edible fruit. I took a bite of my own and yep, pretty dang good. “Yeah, it’s adequate.”
“Adequate? This is delicious.”
“If this was late summer, it’d probably be better.”
“Okay, you can make it again for me in late summer and I’ll let you know. But for real, this is delicious. And the cream! The cream melts in my mouth.” They flushed. “Oh no, now everything’s a sex joke. But I don’t care, because this is...so...goooooooood...”
That time it was definitely a moan, and definitely on purpose. I shook my head, attempting to not be in any way moved by Sidney moaning over my food, though it made me feel appreciated and a little turned on.
We scraped our bowls clean with our spoons when we were done and Sidney took them up to the sink. “I can’t get over how good that was. Fruit and whipped cream. But the cream made all the difference. It’s nowhere near that good out of a can.”
“I should think not! But no, I know. And it’s always sickly sweet and vaguely chemical out of a can. I make it a little less sweet with more vanilla and no can flavor.”
“The lack of can flavor is a treat, thank you. Thank you for all of it.” They sat back down again, seeming restless. “I feel like you took me out for lunch and then I asked you to come back to my place to make me more food and sit around while I edited video.”
“We split lunch! And I guess you sort of did? But I don’t know.” I thought about the whole day, from my pained date selfie until now. “This has been the best part of our date for me. It was for sure not lunch.”
“Are you sure? I’m sorry I had a bee in my bonnet about editing. I had it in my head that I was going to do it today and didn’t revise my plan in time to realize I probably could have done it tomorrow.”
“Don’t you work tomorrow too?”
“Yeah. Through Wednesday.”
I shrugged. “I guess you can feel bad if you want, but I had fun today. I like making you food. And talking to you. And not-talking to you but knowing you’re here. Um. So yeah. Anyway.”
They pushed their glasses up on their nose. “I really liked having you here while I edited, if that’s not too weird a thing to say. Most of the time I can’t have other people around while I’m working, it’s too distracting. But I don’t know. It was nice knowing you were here. That you’d be here when I was done.”
“Me too.” Also maybe we should have sex right now. No. Maybe we should kiss.
I opened my mouth to propose it when they said, “Can I kiss you again?”
“Omigod, yes. All the yes. I was about to say the same thing.”
Being kissed by Sidney was a bit like homemade whipped cream—a little sweet, a little velvety, a lot melty. I edged forward on my chair and they cupped their hand around my neck, a move I almost always loved, which I especially loved in this moment, with them, because their hand was so warm, like their lips.
We parted just enough to breathe, but their hand kept me in place, looking at their eyes through two sets of lenses.
“Thank you for dessert,” they whispered.
“Pretty sure this is the real dessert. Damn. I think I could have done a cherry on top pun there somehow.”
They smiled, but it was a soft smile, almost gentle. “I really like you.”
“I super duper like you too. You’re kinda terrific, Sidney, FYI.”
“Thanks.” Their voice was a little husky now.
“Um. I can’t decide if this is where we have sex or say goodbye?”
“I have a counter offer.”
I grinned. “Lay it on me.”
“What if we kiss some more and then say goodnight? I have to wake up at three a.m. I don’t want to be worried about how many hours of sleep I’m getting before work the first time we have sex.”
“Very reasonable.” I nodded. And nodded again. And again.
They squeezed my neck (which, hello, I also quite liked). “Did you break a hinge or something?”
“Ha, no. I’m nodding in agreement with your logic. Which is logical.”
“I’m good at logical. Most of the time. So do you accept my terms?”
“I am all about your terms. Punch me in the nuts the next time I skip over kissing before saying goodbye.”
“I don’t think I’ll be punching you in the nuts, Declan. Not my kink.” But they would kiss me, and they did.
We eventually scooted the armchairs closer together and got a little limb-tangled with the kissing. It was slightly awkward, but somehow that added to the charm of it. I wouldn’t kiss just anyone slightly awkwardly between two armchairs, but for Sidney? Yes. There was no couch or futon, the desk chairs would have been worse, and the bed seemed like tempting fate.
Armchair making out it was, and it was good.
Our goodbyes were punctuated by a few more kisses, with me brushing their hair back and them with their hands on my shoulders. My lips were tingling when I got in my car, in a good way. A promising way.
I couldn’t wait to see them again.
Chapter Fourteen
I was nervous for The Love Study. Mara had texted me to say sorry she was so busy, she still wanted to do coffee and knitting, and oh, hey, since we’re here, how was the date with Spunk? Which made me laugh and I sent back a bunch of heart eyes and told her she had to tune into the show to find out more.
Except by the time we sat down to stream, I was gnawing on my lips and fiddling with the wrapper on the bottle of water Sidney already had waiting for me when I arrived (just in time, but not late).
“Are we doing this?” I asked in a small voice. We hadn’t really discussed what we’d say about our date to our—or their—audience.
“I think so. Unless you don’t want to?” I thought I detected a little bit of hope that maybe I’d be the one to call it off.
“I...” Usually I wanted nothing more than to proclaim something I enjoyed to the world. I loved talking, and I loved talking about myself, and I loved talking about things I lo—liked doing, and right now being with Sidney ticked all those boxes, but for some reason it didn’t feel quite the same. Aside from sending my friends a few excited puppy GIFs and telling them that Sidney liked my (literal) whipped cream, I hadn’t much gone into it.
Which was a little weird for me. But it was new. That was probably why. Anyway, this was the show, and I’d signed up for it. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it...”
“Then we will. Just pretend the date wasn’t with me. Right? Talk about it the way you would any other date.”
“Right. I mean...” I frowned at them, searching for words. “This is weird for me. Usually when I feel like this about someone I’m all Paul Revere-ing it from the rooftops.”
“This is YouTube. It might be different.”
“Maybe? But I don’t know if that’s the thing. Um. What...what do you think? Like. I guess since there’s a sponsor, we should probably do it?”
“No. I mean yes, but no, I’m not...holding you, or, uh, this hostage to YouTube, sponsor or not.” They took a visible breath, in and out. “I feel pretty exposed right now, to be honest. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s new. Like you said.”
“Yeah.” I paused. “So...you think we should do it or not do it? I don’t want you to feel exposed. I mean, you know, unless that’s our goal. Is that our goal?”
“Maybe it is. At least, I knew you were opening yourself up to that when I asked you to come on the show.”
I reached out, a little tentatively, and touched their arm. “If you don’t want to do this, then we’ll just say there was no date this week.”
“The show...” They shook their head and looked up at me over the top of their glasses. “Thank you. I think maybe it would be
good to go through with it, as long as you’re okay with that.”
“Good for you or good for the show?”
“Both? Good for me because it’s a challenge and it’s a little uncomfortable. Good for the show because we had a valid date experience.”
“You mean faildate,” I teased.
“I do not mean faildate at all.”
We smiled at each other for an extended moment. Then I kind of moved forward, and they kind of moved forward, and we kissed. We pulled back, both of us still smiling.
“Okay, then,” they said. “Should we do this?” The mouse hovered over the record button.
“Um. Yes. Let’s do this.”
They nodded. And clicked.
Roller coaster car: at zenith. Hold on to your keys and cell phones, kids, we’re about to go downnNNNNNN...
“Welcome to another episode of The Love Study, the series about love, dating, and the pursuit of queer companionship in a bleak and hopeless world. I’m your spinster uncle Sidney, and this is my co-host, Declan.” They turned to me. “Hi.”
I couldn’t help grinning like a fool. “Hi.”
“So.”
“Yeah.”
“Date #4.”
“Yep.”
Now both of us were grinning with a sort of giddy recklessness, like we were together at the top of the roller coaster.
DATE #4 HOT-AS-FUCK GQ WITH RED GLASSES WHO’S EXCELLENT AT KISSING
“That is not what we’re calling me.”
“Hey, when you go out with you, you can decide on your stock photo description. But since I went out with you, I get to decide.”
“So that means I decide on your stock photo description?”
I hesitated. “I’m the subject of the study. I don’t have a stock photo description.”
Their eyes narrowed. “That’s definitely not the rule.”
“Moving right along,” I said quickly, turning to the camera because looking at Sidney was distracting. “You guys—sorry, I mean that gender neutrally—you all, this date started out as a massive fail. It was a faildate. I accept full responsibility for initiating said faildate.”
Sidney raised a hand. “For the record, I object to the terminology being used to describe this date, but I acknowledge that Declan has the right to classify dates however he chooses, as he is the subject of the study.”
“Thank you. Ahem.” I realized I was looking at them instead of the camera and tried to focus. “Our faildate began at lunch on Saturday at The Diner in La Vista. Any of you who’ve ever been to lunch on Saturday at The Diner in La Vista will probably realize why it’s not a great first date location.”
They leaned forward confidentially. “Most of the people watching have no idea where La Vista even is. It’s an international audience. Because: the internet.”
“Wait, we’re on the internet right now? I am shocked!” I stuck my tongue out at them and went back to the camera. “Anyway, as I was saying, think classic American diner, lunch on a weekend. The place was packed, and loud, and we had to wait forever for a table, then forever for our food, and to be honest, I went into serious sensory overwhelm and kind of couldn’t deal.”
“It was really loud,” Sidney agreed. “Hard-to-hear-yourself-think levels of constant noise.”
“And then we got outside and it was such a relief I had to take a minute. And Date #4 was so nice about it, y’all, like so so nice about it. Because I went into anxiety mode and they didn’t act like I was a freak.”
“You’re not a freak. Though you might have some internalized ableism about anxiety. Anyway, I would not have classified that as a faildate, even though it was a...fraught date.”
“A seriously fraught date. Which Sid—um—Date #4 then fixed by demanding I make them dessert.”
Sidney gasped and hit my arm. “I did not!”
I smirked at them. “That’s how I remember it.”
“All lies.”
“Okay,” I said to the camera. “It wasn’t a demand, and I’m the one who basically forced lunch dessert on them. But to whatever degree making your date dessert after initiating faildate can fix things, I think this did? Or spending more time together fixed it? I’m not sure.”
“I reject the notion that our date was broken, but I concede the point: it improved after I invited Declan over to sit here while I edited and ignored him for like two hours.” They turned to me. “I wanted to say thank you, again, for giving me a few minutes after I finished working to just be silent before we started talking.”
I shrugged. “Sure thing.”
“What made you think to do that?”
“Um.” I thought about it, conscious that I was dead air on YouTube, but not willing to brush it off. “I guess because I was projecting a little? Back when my anxiety was...worse than it is now, sometimes transitions were hard for me. I’d leave work and just sit in my car without starting it to decompress from work mode and get into not-work mode. I thought that might be helpful to you too?”
“It really was. And I don’t think to do that when there’s not a physical change—like driving or walking home from work—so I appreciated the reminder.” They smiled at me and I had the distinct impression that if we weren’t on YouTube right now they might have kissed me. The smile had a potential-for-kissing aura to it.
Smile auras are totally a thing.
“So I, um, didn’t do our, like, Love Study rating thing.”
“You don’t have to if—”
“Fives across the board,” I cut them off. “Physical chemistry: five. Intellectual chemistry: five. Would absolutely date again. I mean, if Date #4 wanted to.”
“Fives for me too.”
I held out my hand for a fist bump. “Not too bad for a faildate.”
“It wasn’t a faildate,” they growled.
I waggled my eyebrows at the camera. “They just growled at me. You heard that, right? Everyone heard it? Comment if you heard Date #4 growl, because I’m almost certain I—”
Sidney plastered a hand across my mouth, which was weirdly hot, and looked dead into my eyes. “Behave yourself.”
“Omhg,” I mumbled, fanning myself.
“Declan.”
I attempted to compose my face into a Serious Expression.
They sighed and unmuzzled me. “So you had a good date.”
“I had a great date. The second half, anyway. I mean it.”
“Can you—without joking—try to pick apart what separates a great date from a less successful one? I think that would be helpful for people.”
“Um. Okay. I’ll try.” I took a deep, cleansing breath, but they were looking at me with such deep suspicion that I immediately started giggling. “Sorry! Sorry. Okay. I think part of it is the chemistry? Like, if you have a ton of chemistry with someone, I do think it’s easier to...smooth over the inevitable bumps. And there were bumps. The whole lunch was a massive bump.”
“Maybe define what you mean by ‘bumps.’”
“Um, like, awkward moments? Awkward stretches? Of mutual awkwardness?” I paused, hoping I wasn’t going to accidentally hurt them, but they were nodding.
“I agree. I’m pretty awkward in general. No date with me will ever be without awkward moments. Or bumps.”
“Yeah, me too. And also, regardless of one’s personal awkward level, first dates are rife with naturally occurring awkwardness.”
They grinned. “I dig that.” They looked at the camera. “You heard it here, officially, on The Love Study: first dates are rife with naturally occurring awkwardness, even when you like each other a lot, even when you’re having a great time.”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Um, does that mean...you had a great time too?”
“Obviously.”
“Yay!” I resumed my first-date-analysis posture. “So yeah
, chemistry can help with awkwardness. And willingness to do something different. If we’d just had lunch and then gone our separate ways, I don’t think I would have spent, like, all of yesterday bouncing around my apartment singing Disney songs.”
“You did?”
“Um.” Oops. “...maybe?”
“Aww. That’s good. I’m glad. I mean, that you were okay coming over. Which I still feel weird about.”
“It was a risk, I think. In terms of...” What was I trying to say? I knew I had a point. I considered the camera and our invisible watchers. “Okay, say you go out with someone to a bar or something and it doesn’t work out. You cut your losses, right? If it’s not going all that well but you feel something with that person and you totally switch it up and propose a different thing, that’s a risk.” I turned to Sidney. “Thank you for taking that risk. I really loved hanging out making food while you worked.”
They bit their lip for a moment, then said, “You’re welcome.”
Neither of us said anything, just kept staring at each other.
Sidney turned to the camera and transitioned into the sponsor ad read, which maybe only felt abrupt to me because I was super excited to hang out with them post-video. I was practically holding my breath by the time they said, “Thanks for watching and I will spinster at you more next time.” And: click.
I sat all the way back in my chair and exhaled. “Wow. That was kind of a rush.”
They also sat back. “I’m exhausted now.”
“For real.”
“I need to—” Hand wave to indicate all the stuff they needed to do.
“Yeah.”
They minutely shifted the position of their keyboard. “Will you stay for a little while?”
I’d stayed after the last three videos, but I sort of got why they were asking specifically. We’d gone from casual friendship to...something else. Different permissions were required. “I’d love to.”
They nodded and applied themself to Spinster Uncle admin and logistics.
Since I could now watch them with impunity, I did. The rainbow suspenders were back, this time over a high V-neck blue T-shirt. They also had on a rainbow bracelet and a Hello Kitty hair clip holding a braid back from getting in their face. I licked my lips, thinking about kissing them. And about whether they’d think it was awesome if I unclipped their hair sometime. I might have a hair thing. Not as in fetish. Just that it seems sort of intimate to be allowed to take someone’s hair out of a style. Like you need to be close for that, it’s not an offhand thing.