A Totally Platonic Thing

The first time I saw Chris—well, actually, I heard Chris before I saw him, because he’s always tended to be a lot louder than he is tall.

So I caught his shrill, furious protest all the way across the big open space in front of the university library, and the first words I ever heard him say were, “The pretzel is a lie! And I’m going to call the Chancellor’s office! Like, oh my God, that is not. A. Pretzel!”

Partly because I was hungry and a pretzel, truthful or not, sounded pretty fucking good, and partly because I’d started laughing, and partly because I desperately needed a distraction from my own problems, I meandered down the library steps and headed toward the pretzel cart. Logic suggested the yelling had come from there.

The first thing I noticed was that the usual guy who worked the pretzel cart wasn’t there. The owner, a dour Austrian man with a large mustache, usually manned the cart himself, doling out pretzels, mustard, and pessimistic opinions about possible natural disasters to every customer, to the delight of everyone on campus. In his place stood a wide-eyed, sullen teenager, in the uniform hat that matched the cart’s logo. The kid was dodging and weaving and flailing his arms around. As I got closer, I saw he was trying to get away from something being waved at him by a short, skinny, dark-haired guy in an oversized blue sweater. The sleeves of that thing flapped in the air with his crazy gesticulations, nearly knocking over the mustard bottles with every pass.

I stopped a couple of feet away next to a knot of other people who were watching and laughing.

“You can’t call this a pretzel!” Sweater guy jabbed the offending not-a-pretzel at the kid behind the cart. This time his sleeve caught on a mustard bottle. It went flying, spattering all over his sweater and the ground.

With an incoherent, high-pitched snarl of outrage, sweater guy, now blue and yellow, dropped the pretzel on the cart counter and stormed off, heading toward the library. I caught a glimpse of red cheeks and bright eyes as he passed.

Maybe too bright? Like he was on the verge of tears. Yeah, that guy had something going on that transcended pretzel problems. I knew the feeling.

I stepped up to the cart and peered down at the pretzel he’d left behind. To be fair, it was a really weird, non-pretzel-like shape, all the salt had stuck to one end, and it had black, burned spots all over it. How did you even fuck up a pretzel that bad? It was almost impressive.

I looked up at the kid in the stupid hat. He glared back at me.

“Did he already pay? Because I have to say, that honestly doesn’t look like a pretzel.”

Maybe because I was several inches taller than him rather than the sweater-pretzel guy’s several inches shorter, or maybe because I waited him out, staring him down, after a second the kid deflated like all the air had rushed out of him.

“He paid,” he said sulkily. “My uncle made me cover the stupid cart because my aunt had to go to the hospital. It’s just bread, whatever.”

I stared him down some more.

A couple of minutes later, I left the cart with two acceptable pretzels and a little container of mustard and followed sweater guy toward the library.

I found him sitting under a tree on a bench tucked behind a wall and a set of stairs to the library’s side entrance, hidden from view unless you were looking for him. He had his sweater spread out on the bench next to him, now spotted with bits of lint from the handful of napkins he was using to dab at the mustard stains.

Santa Rafaela didn’t exactly get cold compared to most places, but an icy breeze had been blowing down from the mountains all morning and he had goosebumps on his arms and shoulders, sitting there with nothing but a black undershirt over his jeans.

He looked up as I approached—and froze, mouth hanging open, his face going even brighter red. Jesus, he had green eyes. Big, wide, bright green eyes, like some kind of freaking Disney cartoon character.

“These pretzels aren’t exactly the best, but they’re not lies,” I said, because my brain had stalled.

He blinked up at me, looking even more like a cartoon, with the long eyelashes fluttering and everything. I fought the urge to shuffle a little and fidget. Shit. Did he think I was flirting with him, following him over here with his not-a-lie pretzel? I mean, if he’d been a cute girl, I’d have so been flirting with him. A pretzel rescue would be a great way to meet someone. I always had trouble striking up a conversation without a good reason.

“You know, I don’t even like mustard,” he said at last, his mouth turning down into something between a frown and a pout.

I looked down at the mustard I’d brought him, feeling even more like an idiot.

“Oh, shit,” he said, his voice going high. “I’m sorry. That was like, so incredibly rude. One of those is for me, right? That was so rude! I’m so sorry! Thank you for bringing me that. You seriously didn’t have to. That was so—”

“You’re welcome, it’s no big deal, no worries,” I cut in, now as flustered as he was. Jesus. First he sat there staring at me, and then the flood of apologies. It was giving me whiplash. “The mustard can be for me. I like it. Just not all over my shirt, obviously.”

Well, he didn’t own the bench. I sat down a couple of feet from him and held out the pretzel that hadn’t been in my hand with the mustard.

After an instant’s hesitation, he reached out and took it. A gust of wind whistled through, and he shivered, his hand shaking a little, bits of salt falling off the pretzel and right onto his mustard-spattered, lint-spotted sweater.

He made a comical little horrified face that had me biting my lip to keep in a laugh. “I don’t think even dry cleaning can save this,” he said mournfully, and blinked up at me with those sad eyes.

Yeah, and even if dry cleaning had any hope, this guy was going to freeze to death first.

Fuck it. I had a t-shirt and a flannel button-down on under my black jacket.

I carefully set my pretzel and mustard down on the little piece of waxed paper it’d come with—on the other side of me, because that sweater didn’t need any more abuse—slid my backpack off my arm and set it on the ground, and shrugged out of my jacket.

The guy stared at me some more as I wordlessly held it out to him. “You know,” he said at last, “I’ve been having the shittiest day. And now I have a pretzel. And—like, a knight in shining armor.” He shot me a coy, sideways smile. Oh, fuck. He did think I was flirting. I had to correct him before he figured it out on his own and got all embarrassed. I’d been there more than once, and it sucked. But he kept talking before I could think of a tactful way to do that. “Are you really giving me your jacket?”

“I want it back at some point.” I shook it at him. “C’mon, take it. I have two other layers on. You’re turning blue. And it’s machine washable.” That lame joke won me a blinding smile that had me blinking at him. Fuck, if he’d been a girl…why didn’t anything like this happen to me with someone I wanted to ask out? I really had to say something. “And, uh, I’m not a knight, okay? No armor. Just a jacket. I’m, um, I’m not…”

A little flicker of something passed across his face too quickly for me to interpret, dimming him for a second like a cloud blowing across the sun. And then the smile ramped up a notch, almost too wide. “Not gay? Yeah, I figured. Sorry. I like, flirt with everyone. Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” I said a little too gruffly, feeling like an asshole. “You should take the jacket, though. I’m getting cold just looking at you.”

He blushed, but he finally took the jacket out of my hands and put it on, making little contented sounds and snuggling into it. Was he sniffing it? Oh, for fuck’s sake. I probably should’ve washed it or something. But that was stupid, right? How the hell would I have known to wash my jacket so that I could randomly loan it to some stranger?

Because I’d reached some peak level of awkward, I picked up my pretzel and started to eat it. What else was I supposed to do?

He did the same after a second, and I munched away in silence.

Until he started making little moaning noises around his pretzel.

I choked on a bite.