Hearts

nine

"We should do something today."

We were sitting in the kitchen, eating pancakes that I had somehow found the motivation to make early on a Saturday morning, when Romeo said that.

I didn't know how many times I had heard him say those words before, but it was definitely at least as many times as Romeo brought up some crazy idea that he was going to drag me into. It had been a while since the last time I had heard it, but it was still familiar.

My mind was suddenly transported to five years ago, when "we should do something" meant feeling so much dread and just a little bit more excitement.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked cautiously.

Romeo picked up the bottle of maple-flavored high fructose corn syrup. Real maple syrup was too expensive. "I don't have anything planned, would you believe it?"

"Not for a second. What's the plan?"

Romeo laughed. "I told you, I don't have anything. We should go out, though. There's no fun in spending all day inside." He proceeded to dump half of the syrup bottle onto a single pancake.

"That looks unhealthy," I commented as I watched Romeo spoon syrup straight into his mouth. Romeo glared at me. "You're unhealthy." Buying the syrup was a mistake.

"I want to bring Jani coffee," I said. "She's working all day today. Can we do that first? Then we can do whatever you want for the rest of the day."

Romeo nodded. "Yeah. She works at that

restaurant, right?"

"Yeah."

I hadn't seen Jani since our kind-of-date, which had been earlier this week. We hadn't talked about whether that day meant anything, but we had been texting every day. Last night, she had complained about having to work the entire day today, so I wanted to surprise her with coffee. It was a boyfriend thing to do, but we weren't really dating, so hopefully, it wouldn't be awkward.

"There's a coffee place just down the street from there," Romeo said. "We can pick up a drink, drop it off, and then commence with today's activities, which I've decided two seconds ago will be a chicken nugget tour."

"What?"

"We'll go to all the fast food places in town, order chicken nuggets there, and eat all of them as we go," Romeo explained like this was a normal Saturday activity.

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, sure. Just so we're clear, your idea is completely stupid, and I'm only agreeing to humor you."

Romeo grinned. "That pretty much sums up our entire relationship. You think my lack of sanity is endearing."

Bold statement. He wasn't wrong, though.

"I think that if chicken nuggets are all we eat today, we're going to feel terrible," I said.

Romeo ignored me and spooned more syrup into his mouth.

I finished breakfast, and Romeo finished his syrup. Then, he took our plates to the kitchen and set them by the sink. I grabbed my wallet and my copy of the apartment key from the counter.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

I nodded.

We headed out the door and rode the elevator down to the first floor. It occurred to me that this was the first time we had taken the elevator down together. Romeo always left before I did in the morning, usually even before I woke up. Other than our evenings in front of the TV where at least one of us would fall asleep, we hadn't spent any time together this week. Sometime recently, we had somehow changed our dynamic. We didn't have the same types of conversations that we had when we were in a car all day. Ever since we got here, things had been different. It wasn't a big change, but it was there. I wondered if he had gotten bored of having me around. Maybe he just wanted to be alone now, but we had gotten too far for him to kick me out. I wanted to ask him what he thought, and I would if I could find a way to do it.