“No, I thought you were cute too. And I actually spotted you first.”
“Wait. What?”
“I was just walking through the Square—”
“No one calls it that!”
“Well, start that trend in my honor.”
“I’ll hate it, but okay. Go on. Tell me how you thought I was cute as fuck as you were walking through the Square.”
“I was walking through the Square, and that Death-Cast presentation caught my eye—”
“And then I did too!”
“Do you want to tell the story of how I thought you were cute or do you want me to?”
“Are you for real asking a storyteller if he wants to tell—”
“Anyway, I saw you—”
“But you didn’t say hi!”
“Probably because I knew I wouldn’t get a word in!”
I zip up my lips and hand Valentino the make-believe key. He clenches it in his fist.
“Knowing my luck, I’ll probably lose it like my phone.” Valentino looks over his shoulder as if there’s a chance he’s going to find his iPhone on the ground just waiting for him. “I didn’t say hi because I didn’t know that was a thing that people actually do. But I’m really glad you did what I didn’t have the heart to do.”
I want to snatch the key out of his hand so I could ask him if the pun was intended, or to rag on how he definitely doesn’t want my busted heart, but Valentino unlocks my lips with his own.
“Just so you know, I legit never walk up on cute guys. I was really trying to live it up.”
“Thank God you— I’m really thankful you made that first move, Orion.”
“Thanks for not scarring me with some huge-ass rejection, Valentino.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off me, like I’m the most interesting part about this city.
I grab the camera out of the hoodie’s pocket and point at the bottom corner of the bench. “Go sit. I want to take a picture of the spot where I first met you.”
“I’m not taking that alone. We’re in that together.”
Valentino and I sit on the bench, and I extend my arm, hoping to get the right picture. I’m about to snap one no matter how shitty it is when someone taps my shoulder. It’s an older Latino man sitting beside a young curly-haired kid in glasses; I’m guessing father and son but definitely family.
“Would you like some help?” the man asks.
“Oh, uh, sure. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
We step aside so the man and the kid can get down easily.
The kid seems a little jumpy, like he’s about to hide behind the man. I’m guessing he’s like nine or ten.
“It’s okay, Mateo,” the man says.
I give him the camera, though I feel bad about scaring this Mateo kid, who keeps looking around. I get this heartbreaking feeling that maybe it’s Mateo’s End Day and he’s terrified of dying but he really wanted to people-watch in Times Square before he does. Valentino snaps me out of it when he turns my gaze to him, our eyes locked. The man counts us down from three and instead of smiling for the camera, Valentino leans in and kisses me. It means everything that I’ll have this moment immortalized, and when we pull apart, Valentino is smiling with his eyes closed, as if he’s burning this moment into his memory, as if he’s not going to be able to look over the pictures with me.