“Well, I don’t find many things laugh-out-loud funny. I think it makes people uncomfortable. I have a theory that it’s why none of the romantic endeavors I’ve embarked on this past year and a half have worked out. I had a girlfriend in high school, but we had known each other for years so she knew it was a weird thing of mine.”

“Wow.” I start cackling to myself.

“Are you laughing because you think I’m funny?” Zarar asks sweetly.

I glance up at him. “You are the most unfunny, and I find it hilarious. I’m going to need more details here. How often exactly do you laugh out loud?”

“I’d say almost never. Maybe once every few months.”

“Zarar, you just laughed twice. Did you exhaust your quota for the next half a year?”

He shrugs, his eyes shining with a new excited light that I haven’t yet gotten to witness. “I don’t know. It’s not an exact science. It’s kind of like getting to the center of a Tootsie Pop, there’s too many licks to keep count.”

I snort as we hang a right. “That is the most irrelevant metaphor I’ve ever heard. Do explain, Z.”

“I don’t think it’s irrelevant. The licks are the times I think something’s funny and I don’t laugh, the Tootsie Roll is the laugh.”

“Profound.” I smile at him. “This is why I like you.”

“Because of my metaphors? I’m fairly sure this is the first time I’ve made one in conversation with you.”

“Because you’re a Tootsie Pop in the bag of shitty candy. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?”

He slides his eyes down to me. “I’m only looking at you.”

“Oh, man.” I stop moving, roll out my neck, and quell my smile into a neutral smirk. “You are such a loser.”

As we start walking again, Zarar reaches out and casually takes my hand. My stomach shrinks up into a ball.

I shake my fingers out of his. “I don’t do hand-holding, Z. Intimacy in public is nauseating.”

He eyes me sideways as we cross another intersection. “How cool one must be to find hand-holding nauseating.” I snicker, my fondness for him doubling in the span of five seconds.

He points enthusiastically to a food truck on the next corner. “I figured we could eat there. They make a mean grilled cheese.”

I laugh, taking in the You Think You’re Feta Than Me? Gourmet Grilled Cheeses truck down the street: There’s a cartoon of two mobster-looking guys in suits and top hats holding grilled cheese sandwiches with a dialogue bubble that says “Oh, cheese” painted along the side.

Zarar leads us (myself and our grilled cheeses—I got the Leave Me Provolone, he got a Grilleroni) over to a small, picturesque square of a park among the skyscrapers.