Smoke And Steel

• Nineteen - Milkshakes And Mortification •

Avery

"Good night, Princess!" I called out after her as she ran up the driveway in all of her blazing glory. That dress did wonders, but the make up was just a tad on the scary side.

"Be quiet," she hissed, her long hair flicking up as she turned back. "But thank you."

I didn't leave until I saw that she'd gotten inside safely, which made up for her not letting me walk her to the door. "What if my dad's still up?" She'd said, "he'll think I'd been with you all night." I kind of agreed with her on that one, but only because I wasn't in the mood to be interrogated by her father.

"Can we go to Denny's?" Tate asked from the seat beside me as we pulled away. He rubbed his eyes and let out a massive yawn, "I need a milkshake right now."

"Sure," I said, seriously craving one now too. "It's your car, I'm just the driver."

We drove to Denny's in comfortable silence, the only voices coming from the console radio. You know you've got it good with someone when you will drive to the next town over at twenty past ten at night just to get milkshakes with them, and neither of you need to say a word to be comfortable. I didn't have anything like that with anyone else, not even Alex. With him we always had to be doing something, keeping each other entertained, but with Tate there was none of that. Each other's company is enough. That's how I knew that he was a friend for real.

Since we'd made the trip all the way out here, we decided to make it worth the drive. We had milkshakes (chocolate peanut butter for me, red velvet for him), fries, red velvet pancake puppies, pumpkin pie, and a pumpkin pancakes breakfast meal each.

What can I say? When it's Halloween season you've got to make the most of it (even if the risk of going in to cardiac arrest afterwards is higher than average).

"So good!" Tate exclaimed as he was halfway through his pancake platter. He had this glazed look in his eyes that told me he was already full, but wasn't going to stop. "I wish it was October every month."

I was busy dipping my fries into the rich goodness of my milkshake (the only way to eat fries), and it was just so good. Nothing beats a pumpkin-ified breakfast at 11 o'clock at night with your best friend.

"So, Tate," I said, opening the door to conversation. "Tasha told me you've got a girlfriend."

He looked down shyly, "I have no secrets between the pair of you,  Do I? And yeah, I have."

"As your best friend I'm thoroughly offended that you didn't tell me," I said, clutching my heart in an overly dramatic fashion. "Now you must spill the metaphorical beans and tell me everything about him or her."

"My sister is the bisexual one, you realize?"

"I was just covering my bases in case you'd come to any revelations lately that you hadn't bothered to tell me about," I defended.

"Okay, well I can assure you that I am still completely in love with girls, and probably will be until I die."

"You can never be too sure, but alas, tell me about this girl."

"I started seeing her a few weeks ago, you know, just as friends. But then I realized 'hey, I actually really like this girl', so I got the courage to ask her out on a proper date and she said yes," he explained shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm going to need more than that, my dear Channing all-over-your Tatum. Do I know her?"

He nodded, "Fey Maree."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You sound surprised."

"It's just that, well, she's so out there and you're so mellow. Complete opposites at a glance."