That’s what I want to say to my parents when I leave the house.

James got us free tickets to that National Lampoon movie. I’ll be back by midnight.

That’s what I do say to my parents, despite the fact that James wouldn’t be caught dead at that movie, and Becky has plans to see Andy, and from the dismissive look on my father’s face, I’m glad I didn’t say more.

At some point, there is bread. And salad. And pasta.

At some point, Gabriel orders a jug of wine that comes wrapped in straw, and I somehow don’t get carded.

At some point, there are candles that have burned down to tiny white mountains and cake that tastes like coffee.

At some point he looks at me with those dark eyes and says, If I were nicer, I wouldn’t be here with you, but I can’t seem to stay away, and then laughs in a way that turns me to jelly.

And because of the wine and the candlelight and those eyes, I only hear that he can’t stay away, and I’m undone.

Gabriel leads me to a café off MacDougal.

I heard that Jack Kerouac used to hang out here, he says.

I order a cappuccino while Gabriel gets something made with orange juice and sparkling water.

Do you read Kerouac? I ask.

Gabriel smiles in a way that makes his eyes light up. No, he says. But I thought you would.

I keep trying, I say.

But underneath, something bubbles up inside me. I am consumed by the idea that Gabriel thought about what I might read, and figured out I’d like to go somewhere the Beat writers hung out.

Bob Dylan wrote stuff here too, he says, looking over the edge of his glass.

I glance around at the worn wooden tables and the grooved floors and the high rafters. Dylan’s gravelly voice floats around and around in my head.

Then Gabriel looks me in the eye and says, Someday, someone is going to take a hot boy to this restaurant and say, Michael Bartolomeo used to hang out here.

I gulp down the rest of my cappuccino so quickly I burn my throat.

He is sweet. And sexy. And…everything.

He is silhouetted against the dark of the sky and the lights of the city.

He is running his fingers under my shirt, and it feels like they’ve always been there.

He tastes like oranges and salt, words and music, hope and fear and promise.

My entire body feels like a balloon, tethered to him by a string, daring to float away.

Gabriel rides the subway with me and gets off at my stop and walks me to the end of my block.

I have twelve minutes until curfew.

We duck into a doorway and make out in the shadows for eleven and a half of them.

My parents have gone to bed; only I suspect my mother won’t sleep until she knows I’m home.

I hear her rustle out of the covers and then quietly close the bedroom door behind her.