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You tap a stack of invoices on your desk, aligning their edges before filing them away. Then you make sure all the customer keys are labeled and hung appropriately. You know they are but you’re trying to kill the last few minutes of your shift at Prevo Auto. You refresh the shop email and no new messages come through. 4:57. Come on 5pm! You look through the window in the front office into the garage to try to see Corey, but you only see your father. You empty the small trash can under your desk.
Dad is how you got the job working Prevo’s front desk, and how you first came to know Corey. Dad was one of Ron’s first hires when Prevo opened up on the outskirts of Haddonfield. You went to the same school as Corey, the only high school in Haddonfield, but you never crossed paths with your fellow Husker. No, you’d see him when work brought your families together, the Prevo Christmas party, you and Dad visiting their house for dinner once or twice (and then never again to avoid spending any more time in the vicinity of Ron’s horrible wife, Joan). A few times in the spring Corey turned 21, when Dad hired him to help out with yard work.
The first time you ever got to really speak to him, you’d been sitting cross legged on the back porch squeezing petunias out of little plastic cups from the nursery and massaging their roots so he and Dad could plant them. He sat down next to you, soil and grass clippings sticking to his sweaty legs, taking a break from the sun. You’d talked a while, the longest and most private conversation you’d ever had with him, and found him extremely likable. He was smart and ambitious and he made you laugh. He was looking really good too, his short time doing landscaping for people in town already adding bulk to his limbs and bleaching little copper streaks into his brown hair, the sun encouraging his freckles.
You found out he’d just turned 21 and didn’t do anything for his birthday, so when all the work was done, you’d brought him a beer and a Hostess cupcake.
“This is your birthday party now,” you told him. One corner of his mouth lifted into a smile before bringing the other side up with it. You ended the day with a little crush on him.
You started your job at Prevo not long after that, hoping it meant you would see Corey more often. Then the accident happened. It fell to you and Dad to keep the ship afloat while the captain was away, running the auto shop the best you could to help take pressure off Ron, who was gone every day for weeks, driving two hours one way with Joan and Corey to Springfield for the trial. You wanted desperately to sit in the courtroom gallery and support him. To be a kind face is the sea of snarls he had to look out into every day. But you knew you were needed at work, that you were supporting him from behind your desk. A couple times in the evenings you delivered a casserole to the Cunningham-Prevo house, wanting to make sure they were eating well despite all the stress and time spent out of town.
Since Corey came to work for his step-father, you’ve become good friends. Joan serves dinner at 6:30 like clockwork and makes Corey’s night hell if he’s late, but Ron cuts him loose at 5, even tho Prevo is open til 6, to give him 90 glorious minutes of free time before Joan can get him back under her thumb for the evening. The flow of customers has usually all but dried up by then, so the ends of your shifts align.
You stand in front of the ancient time clock in the back, hand hovering, prepared to insert your time card as soon as it rolls over to 5:00. A massive pair of hands comes from nowhere to cover your eyes.
“Guess who?” Says a raspy voice in a Northeastern accent. As if it could be anybody else.
“The Easter bunny?” You ask.
Corey chuckles. “Not quite.”
“Okay, then it’s probably… James Dean.”
He scoffs. “No.”
“Shit, okay,” you say, pretending to be disappointed. “Final guess… Corey Cunningham?”
He lifts his hands from over your eyes and steps to stand next to you.
“Third time’s the charm,” he says.
“You’re such a dork,” you tell him playfully as you clock out, at 5:01, thanks to him.
“I learned from the best,” he says, taking your place in front of the time clock.
Corey changes out of his coveralls and washes all the grease off his hands in the bathroom. You check your phone, thinking of texting your friend Allyson. You haven’t heard from her in weeks, maybe months, which isn’t uncommon. But last you heard she was still trying to untangle herself from that scummy cop she’d been with since 2018. You feel like you should check on her. But before you can finish composing your message, Corey comes out of the bathroom. You never look at your phone when you’re with him. You get to spend too little time together to squander it.
The two of you enact your routine for afternoons you spend together. You ride on his bike pegs first to the gas station, then to the part of town where the old Myers house used to sit, a desolate and decaying neighborhood with a park you can’t believe the city still bothers to mow. You sit on the cracked swings creaking from rusty chains and dig your toes down into the ancient mulch, all the way to the rotten tarp underneath. How much Corey wants to talk varies a lot, so you let him set the tone. Although he was playful at work, he seems to have fallen deep into thought on the bike ride, so neither of you says much.
Suddenly you remember something you used to do as a kid. You use your feet to rotate the swing 90 degrees, then 90 more, so you’re facing the opposite direction and the rusted chain is crossed above you. You complete another half turn and the chain braids around itself. You dig your feet into the mulch and slowly turn yourself around, again, and again, getting more and more difficult as the chain kinks, gaining resistance and raising you further from the ground. It makes a scraping sound as the rust grinds together, and a concerning groaning from the stress on the bolts holding the chains to the support structure. Corey watches you skeptically. When you can’t twist the chains anymore you rest for a second before lifting both feet off the ground.
The chains unravel and you spin back the other direction, even faster than you expected, the chain coiling back around itself. You laugh heartily, shocked that it’s still so fun. Corey’s skeptical look changes to delight and he laughs as he twists his own swing’s chains. You both spin over and over, cackling, until you get so dizzy you slip backwards out of the swing and land on your ass.
“Be careful!” Corey says, jumping off his swing to help you.
You’re still laughing. You take his outstretched hand and he pulls you up. You stand there, your hand lingering in his for a moment. Then his alarm goes off. 6:15. Playtime’s over. You dust yourself off before once again you mount his bike pegs. He drops you off at your place before biking the rest of the way home.
“How was your date?” Dad asks from the living room as you come inside.
“It wasn’t a date,” you say, kicking off your shoes.
“Whatever you say, Pumpkin,” Dad replies.
You wish it was a date. The little crush you formed that day on the back porch has only grown in the intervening years. Deepening and strengthening, fueled by your respect for how he handled himself in such a horrible situation, your awe at his inner strength, and your delight to find his sense of humor lingering after everything he’s been through. In the moments at work when you hand him the keys to a car or end up in the break room at the same time, and those short hours when Joan thinks he’s still at work, you’ve fallen in love with him.
You’ve fallen in love with him and it is totally fucking unrequited. Corey loves you, you don’t doubt that at all, but it’s excruciatingly platonic. When you first realized how you felt, you’d tried to pay attention, look for signs that he felt the same way. Sometimes you thought you saw something, in the way he looked at you, or how his hand always seemed to brush yours when he handed you a set of keys. It wasn’t exactly the most compelling evidence. You couldn’t trust that you weren’t just reading too much into things. Corey is shy, awkward, inexperienced. But surely he would do something more obvious if he felt the same as you do.
So it’s not reciprocal. You’ve done your best to accept it. You weren’t meant to be anything more than friends with him, so you just enjoy his friendship. You work hard to be the best friend you can be. Somebody has to look out for him in this town, this world, that seems set on destroying him.
You eat dinner in front of the TV with Dad, then you spend the rest of the night in your room. Listening to music and pacing in the lamp light. Trying not to think about Corey, refusing to indulge the temptation to imagine what a future with him would be like. Instead, you fold your laundry. You rearrange your bookshelf. You remember your half-written text to Allyson and finish it, hitting send but not expecting much. Eventually it gets late enough for you to climb into bed.
In the morning you’re brushing your teeth when you get a pleasant surprise. Allyson texts back. You suggest the two of you grab lunch to catch up and she agrees. She comes to Prevo to pick you up. Her car rattles so loudly it’s hard to hear her music.
“When you take me back, I’ll have one of the guys look at that rattle!” You say, raising your voice a little over the racket.
“It’s not a big deal!” She says. You raise your eyebrows at her and she laughs. “Okay, it’s a big deal!”
“Don’t worry! Family discount!”
You get to the restaurant and are shown to your table. Allyson tells you that her grandma bought a house and they live together now, that she’s expecting a promotion soon at the Mathis Clinic, that her annoying ex has pretty much faded into the background. You’re so happy she’s doing well. After everything she’s been through she could easily be forgiven for giving up, but she hasn’t. You’re proud of your friend.
“Anyway there’s this Halloween party at Velkovsky’s tomorrow. I wanna go because Lindsey works there and arranged the whole thing, but I don’t wanna go alone,” she says.
You’d offer to go with her but you already have plans with Dad tomorrow night to drive across the border into Iowa to visit a giant pumpkin patch he’d seen online. It’s unclear whether the patch or the pumpkins are giant, but he read that it’s popular with influencers so you agreed to leave the night before your visit. The plan is to stay in a motel so you can be there as soon as the gates open. God forbid all the midwestern Instagram girlies buy all the pumpkins before your father can get one.
Suddenly, a brilliant idea strikes you. “I could set you up with someone, if you want,” you tell her.
“Oh jeez, I don’t know about that,” she protests.
“No, no, he’s an amazing guy. He’s really cute and I think you’ll find you have a lot in common,” you tell her.
She thinks, anxiously tapping a chip against the bowl of salsa on the table. “Okay,” she says. “I’m trusting you… if you think he’s a great guy then I’ll give him a shot.”
Instead of dropping you at the gates to Prevo Auto, Allyson pulls into the scrapyard and you show her where to park. You run inside and look for Corey. You find him in the break room, drinking from a glass bottle of chocolate milk.
“Are you busy?” You ask.
“Not really,” he says, smiling.
“Awesome. Come out front with me, a friend of mine needs something quick and I want you to meet her.”
Corey furrows his brows. He hates meeting people. But you do so much for him, he trusts that you wouldn’t bring him to someone who’ll treat him like most of Haddonfield does. He puts the cap back on his milk and sets it back in the fridge. You lead him out into the yard. Allyson is leaning against her car. She’s so pretty and kind, there’s no way Corey won’t be into her , you think to yourself. You never imagined yourself as the friend who plays matchmaker. You feel the tiniest lump form in your throat. You want Corey to be with you. If you can’t have him tho, you know Allyson will treat him right, that she can understand the trauma and tragedy of his life in a way you probably never could. You’ll be the best (wo)man at their wedding, and a devoted godmother for their children if it comes to that.
“Allyson Nelson, meet Corey Cunningham. Corey, Allyson.”
“Hi,” Corey says sheepishly, wiping a broad hand on his coveralls before holding it out for her to shake.
“Nice to meet you,” she says, accepting it.
“Her car’s been rattling super loud,” you explain. “I thought you could take a look at it.”
“Sure. Probably the exhaust system clamp coming loose. It’ll take like, five minutes. Super cinchy,” Corey says.
Allyson looks at you, then looks at him. “Cinchy?” she says. Corey laughs.
“Okay, I’ll leave you to it then,” you say. You hold your arms out for a hug and Allyson leans in. “Always great to catch up with you. Let’s not wait so long next time.”
“For sure,” Allyson says.
Then you drop your voice to a whisper. “Invite him to Velkovsky’s!” you say into her ear. Then you let go. You clap Corey on the back reassuringly as you walk back into the office.
The phone has a blinking red light. You listen to the voicemails left while you were at lunch and take notes, but your attention is split. You keep looking through the office windows to watch Corey and Allyson. You wish you could hear them because they keep making each other laugh. He puts her car on the lift and rolls under it on a creeper. She keeps talking to him while he works. He rolls back out from under the car and lets it down from the lift. Attila, one of the other mechanics, comes to return a customer’s keys and update the log of what’s been done to their car. When he walks away you can’t see Corey anymore and Allyson’s car is gone.
4:55 Corey is already at the desk, waiting for you to do your last minute organizing and email checking.
“Allyson’s really nice,” he says.
“Yeah,” you say, smiling. You hope it’s convincing. “She is.”
He gives you a strange look, like he’s studying you, but he doesn’t say anything else. The two of you don’t talk at all, all the way to the gas station, through buying snacks, and to the park. While he locks his bike against a tree, you cross to the old merry go round. It’s covered in dry orange leaves and you dust a spot clean. You lay on your back with your legs hanging off the edge, looking up into the gray autumn sky. Corey comes and cleans a spot across from you so that when he lays down your heads are next to each other.
Do you ever think it’s weird that we didn’t know each other in high school? Well, nobody knew me. But do you think it’s weird that I didn’t know you?” Corey asks.
“Nobody knew me either,” you say. “But I wanted to know you, from seeing you at work stuff. I just never saw you in the hallway or anything.”
“You wanted to know me?”
“Well, yeah. Dad told me stuff about you that Ronald told him. And it would’ve been nice to have someone closer to my age to talk to at the Christmas party and shit. I was always too shy to say anything when we were actually at the Christmas party tho. I wanted to have a class with you or something so we could talk that way.”
“I didn’t know that,” Corey says. A few times it seems like he’s going to say something else, but he stays quiet the rest of your time together until he says goodbye when he drops you off at home.
Later that evening you get a text from Allyson, letting you know she took your advice and asked Corey to the party. Then you get a text from Corey, a rarity since his mom still looks through his phone, confused and surprised that Allyson asked him. You encourage him to go. You feel bad about it, but you craft your replies to make it seem like you’re going too. You hate to even be kinda semi-dishonest with him, but you know he’ll say no if he knows you can’t make it. You hope Allyson won’t mention it. If he just shows up, you know he could have a good time. It’ll be a costume party, no one even has to know it’s him. They’ll have a blast and before the night is even over, they’ll agree to a second date.
A smile comes to your face, but your eyes fill with tears. Nothing could make you happier than imagining Corey happy. Your deepest wish is that you could be the one to make him happy, but you have to let go of that eventually. Grow up, move on. They’ve both suffered so much more than you have and they both deserve the best. You’re lucky just to be on the periphery, and you should feel honored to be the one who introduced them. You feel sick to your stomach instead.
The next day at Prevo is super busy, and you’re thankful for it. You don’t want Corey to ask you about the party in person. You haven’t actually lied to him, and you won’t do it if he asks you directly, so it’s easiest if you just don’t talk to him all day. He does wander into the front office a few times, but you’re on the phone or ringing a customer up every time and he doesn’t interfere. When 5 rolls around you can’t avoid him anymore, but luckily all he says is that he has to go straight home to get ready. You tell him you do too, and that technically isn’t a lie either. You still have to pack your overnight bag for the pumpkin patch.
“What’s the matter, Kiddo?” Dad asks as you approach the state line. As far as you can see in either direction, the road is flanked by the dry remnants of this past summer’s crops.
“Corey’s on a date with Allyson Nelson right now,” you say.
“Allyson Nelson? How did that happen?” he asks.
“I set them up.”
“Well, why’d you do that? I know I tease you about it a lot, but I was really tickled that you two have gotten so close.” Dad’s always been fond of Corey too, it’s not news to you that he’s a fan of your friendship.
“Yeah well, I’m tickled too, but he’s not.”
“Why would you think a thing like that?”
You shrug and slouch in your seat. “He hasn’t said anything or done anything to make me think he’s interested in me like that.”
Dad laughs and sighs your name. “I think you’ve been a little blind. Corey adores you.”
“Platonically,” you amend.
“Have you asked him?”
“No,” you say quietly.
“Well Pumpkin, I think you found the problem,” Dad says.
“I just… What if that fucks our friendship up? He doesn’t have anybody else.”
“I know Corey’s important to you, but that doesn’t make him your responsibility. He’s an adult. And I hope your friendship is strong enough to handle a little status update conversation.”
“I think it is but I’m just not 100% sure. I really don’t want to lose him.” Your voice cracks.
“So you set him up with Allyson to keep him?” Dad asks gently.
“My brilliant plan doesn’t sound so brilliant when you say it,” you tell him, and laugh a little. “But it’s too late now.”
“Well why don’t you just wait until we get home and tell him how you feel before you decide that.”
Because he’ll already be falling for Allyson by then, you think but don’t say out loud.
Your phone hasn’t had service for basically the whole drive, and you still can’t get anything to load or go through when you get to the motel. They have wifi, but they charge extra for it. In a way you’re relieved. You don’t want to know how it went yet. You just turn your phone completely off and lay in the stiff motel bed, listening to Dad snoring and the endless episodes of Ancient Aliens on the vintage motel TV.
Allyson picks Corey up on the corner, down the block from his house. He doesn’t want Momma to see him getting in a car with a girl. He didn’t have a costume so she brought him a mask. He expected you to be in the car with Allyson, all three of you carpooling, but he’s disappointed to be her only passenger.
At Velkovsky’s Allyson orders them drinks and Corey sips his apprehensively. She tries to get him to dance and the alcohol has lowered his inhibitions just enough for him to reluctantly agree. Surely you’re on your way and he just has to have a good time with a new friend until you get there. Inside his mask he’s overheating, and the alcohol whispers for him to take it off even though he knows it’s a bad idea. But he’s having fun and you’ll be here soon, so he slips it up over his head and drops it on the pool table.
Allyson is pleasantly surprised to see Corey’s face. You were right, he is really cute. He’s sweet too, and of course she knows what he’s been through. It touches her that his ordeal doesn’t seem to have made him hard the way it sometimes feels like her trauma did to her. She can’t help but wonder why you’re not his girlfriend. She’s heard the admiration in your voice when you’ve mentioned him over the years. Maybe she had just been mistaken about the kind of affection you have for him.
Corey approaches the bar to order another drink, leaving Allyson on the dance floor. He doesn’t notice Theresa Allen slumped on a bar stool nearby. Unfortunately, she notices him.
“ You! ” she says, sitting up. “You just here dancing, having a good time with your friends?”
Corey flinches. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.
“Oh, sorry? You’re sorry!? For killing my son?” She slides off her bar stool to get in Corey’s face. He backs away, trying to find the exit behind him. “I wake up every day and I can’t get past the pain. It kills me, do you understand?” Corey’s back finds the wall and he’s trapped. “No, you don’t understand if you think you can come in here and take off your little mask and have a good time with your friends.”
Lindsey appears from behind the bar and grabs Mrs. Allen, pulling her away from Corey. But that doesn’t stop her from screaming. “The judge might’ve said you were innocent, but I know you! You pushed my little boy because you got mad and lost your fucking mind! Innocent people don’t do that!” Corey finally finds an exit behind him and makes a break for it. Allyson hears all the commotion and turns in the direction of the chaos just in time to see Corey slipping out the door. She rushes after him. “Evil people do!” screams Mrs. Allen. “Evil!”
Corey runs blindly across the yard outside the bar. Allyson follows him, screaming his name. He gets to the street and a car flies past, nearly hitting him.
“Corey, look out!” Allyson shouts, voice breaking.
He stops and she catches up to him.
“Where is she?” he wails.
“Mrs. Allen?” Allyson asks, confused.
“No!”
Then Allyson realizes. He means you.
“She went to Iowa with her dad for that pumpkin patch,” she says. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No! I thought they were going tomorrow. I’ve been waiting for her to show up. I don’t…. I don’t do things without her.” Corey sobs and balls his fists.
“You didn’t think this was a date?” Allyson asks. She feels a little stung but she’s trying to understand.
“A date!?” Why would he think it was a date? His mind swirls. Traffic rushes by. Suddenly the October air on his sweaty skin makes him cold.
“She told me she was setting us up…” Allyson says.
Then it dawns on him. “Oh,” he says, in a much quieter voice. He takes Allyson’s hand. “I’m so sorry. You seem really cool, I’d like to get to know you better. But I… I’m…”
“You’re in love with her?” Allyson finishes for him.
Corey nods. “I’ve been trying to build up the courage to tell her. I guess I waited too long and she gave up on me.” He collapses in on himself, his already usually stooped posture worsening, broad shoulders almost parallel to the ground. He puts his head in his hands and sobs.
“Corey,” Allyson says soothingly. “Hey.” He looks up at her. “I was surprised too. She’s always seemed to really care about you when she’s talked about you. For like, years. I think you should just talk to her.”
Allyson leads Corey back to her car and drives him almost home, dropping him off on the same corner that she picked him up on. He opens his door, then closes it.
“Hey Allyson? Could you not talk to her until I get a chance to?” He asks.
“Sure thing,” she says.
“Thanks for being understanding. Maybe the three of us can hang out sometime.”
“I’d like that,” she says.
When Corey comes inside Momma is waiting for him. She demands to know the details of his night, but he does something he almost never does. He ignores her. He walks straight up the stairs and into his bedroom, locking the door behind him. Momma follows him up the stairs, pounding on his door and yanking on the knob, cursing and complaining. Eventually getting no reaction wears her out, and she goes into her room and closes the door.
Corey lays on his back in bed, bathed intermittently by the red light from the radio tower coming in through the window. He thinks of trying to text or call you but he doesn’t know what he’d say. He kicks himself for not being more proactive. Is it too late now? If you’re setting him up on dates with other people does that mean you’re not interested in him the way he is in you? The way he has been since the spring he turned 21?
He remembers so clearly how scandalized you’d looked when he told you he didn’t do anything for his birthday. How you insisted it was a milestone worth celebrating, even tho Corey had never done much of anything for his birthday except to spend the day even more smothered by Momma than usual. How you’d thrown him a “birthday party” on your back porch with a beer and a snack cake. It didn’t take a lot of effort on your part, it didn’t cost you much of anything. But the fact that you’d cared enough to do anything, to make any kind of deal about it, really mattered to him.
He couldn’t believe the effort you and your dad put into helping his family during the trial either. During the darkest part of his life, the worst thing that ever happened to him, you’d been there. He hadn’t spoken a word to you for months, but he’d felt the same care eating the casseroles you’d prepared that he had felt when you brought him that beer. He mattered to someone other than Momma and Ron. He’d never felt that before. And he’d never properly thanked you.
Now it’s his turn to show you how much you matter to him. He just has to figure out how.
You wake up to the screaming of the old analog alarm clock on the table between the beds in the motel room. Dad reaches over to it and slaps it blindly a few times before turning it off. It’s still dark outside. The TV, never turned off last night, plays an infomercial for some kitchen gadget or other. You reach over to look at your phone before remembering that you turned it off last night. Oh. Right.
You and Dad get breakfast at a Denny’s inside a truck stop across from the motel before heading to the pumpkin patch. When you get there, there’s already a line, but it’s not too bad. The sun starts to creep over the horizon as you wait, and by the time you get in it’s fully light. It’s a gorgeous day. You keep your phone off, trying to just enjoy marveling at how truly giant the pumpkins are, to drink coffee and eat a pumpkin donut without thinking about Corey and Allyson.
At the far end of the field there’s a little platform with several hay bales sitting in front of it. You spin Dad to look in that direction, where some people dressed very conspicuously like cowboys are setting up amps and a drum kit. You pick your way through the mud and the pumpkin vines and sit on a hay bale right up front. You overhear that it’s a country cover band and get excited. This will either be a group of people so genuinely talented you can’t believe they’re playing a show at 8:30 am on a Saturday for a fucking pumpkin patch, or so terrible you can’t believe they’re playing a show at all. Delightfully, it’s the former, and you manage a whole hour without feeling like you’re on the verge of tears.
When the band’s done, two employees load the pumpkins you and Dad picked onto a big wooden cart and push them to the car. They’re so heavy they make the backseat think someone’s sitting there and you have to buckle them in to make it stop beeping. With the children secured you head home.
Corey dresses in the gray light from the window, picking an outfit that he hopes looks nice. He slips down the stairs, wanting to be gone before Momma wakes up. Ron’s asleep on the couch so Corey goes out the back door instead of the front. He rides his bike to your house. He has no idea what time you’ll be home, but he’s prepared to sit in the rocking chair on your front porch until he has to leave for dinner. The sun rises. He starts getting hot in his jacket, so he takes it off and drapes it on the back of the chair. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t think about it. He has to sit here until you get home.
When you get close to Haddonfield, you finally turn your phone back on, knowing you’ll have a signal and fearing the messages that you assume have been waiting for you all last night and all this morning. Gradually all your notifications load, and there are a lot of them. You hold your breath as you watch for something from Corey or Allyson to appear, but there’s nothing. Somehow that feels like the worst option. You don’t want to cry, so you just close your eyes.
“Hey Kiddo,” Dad says as he turns onto your street. “Looks like you’ve got a guest.”
You open your eyes. At the end of the street you can see someone sitting in the rocking chair on your front porch. Someone in a flannel with the sleeves rolled up, someone with a familiar mop of curly brown hair. Why is Corey here?
“I’ll just go inside and leave you to it,” Dad says as he pulls into the driveway. He parks the car and climbs the stairs. “Afternoon, Corey,” you hear him say as he unlocks the door.
“Sir,” Corey replies, inclining his head in Dad’s direction.
You sit in the car. When the front door closes Corey stands from the rocking chair and walks to the edge of the porch. His jacket falls off the back of the chair, but he doesn’t react. You make eye contact with him from the passenger seat. You can’t read his face. Why did he come here instead of trying to call or text you? How long has he been waiting? You open your car door, and he comes down one step. Your heart pounds in your ears. You get out of the car and close the door.
Corey comes down the rest of the stairs and crosses the driveway in three huge strides to pull you into his arms. He gets to you so fast his momentum almost knocks you over, but his arms keep you upright. You hold your arms out awkwardly, startled and confused, before relaxing into his embrace. He nuzzles his face into your neck, holding you like he can’t believe you’re real, like if he lets go, you’ll disappear. Your knees go weak at the amount of affection, getting from him what you’d always wanted but barely dared to imagine.
The hug goes on forever, but when he pulls back, it feels painfully short. He takes a single step away from you.
“Why did you do that?” He asks, and his voice sounds wounded. That wasn’t the emotion you were expecting at all, and suddenly you feel extremely guilty. You can’t look at him. “Why would you think I wanted that?”
“Because I… I just thought…” You begin to sob.
Corey takes your face in his hands, gently making you look at him. He uses his thumbs to wipe the tears off your cheeks, despite those that fall from his own eyes. “I’ve wanted to tell you, but I thought you already knew.”
“Knew what?” You say, voice creaking.
“That I love you,” he says. “I’ve been in love with you the whole time.”
You half sob half laugh. “I love you!” You say. “But I didn’t think you felt the same way.”
Corey pulls you back into his arms.
“Is Allyson mad?” You ask.
“No. She understands.”
You reach up to Corey’s face and wipe his tears from under his glasses. “Wanna come inside?”
“Please,” he says.
You hold hands as you ascend the stairs to the porch. Next time you hang out after work it will be a date. Before you open the door, Corey leans down and plants a gentle kiss on your lips. The first of many to come.