Free How to Meet Cute Boys by Deanna Kizis, Ed Brogna Page A

laugh from the bar backs whenever I did it. But this bouncer, he didn’t even notice that Max’s “Alaska” driver’s
     license was a laminate, when Alaska doesn’t do laminates anymore. I looked at Max like,
What’s going on?
His face remained a blank.
    At the bar, I ordered the usual scotch and soda. Max got a Sprite.
    “So,” I said, looking him over. “You an ex-convict or something?”
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “On the lam? On the run? In the witness protection program?”
    “No. No. And, no. Why?”
    “Well”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“you have a fake ID.”
    “So? Until recently, so did you.”
    He was looking at me like I was being really weird, the straw from his Sprite stuck in his mouth. I was looking at him like
     he was being really weird, beads of water from my scotch condensing in the palm of my hand.
Why would I have a fake ID for six years?
I wondered, reaching for the napkin.
Why would I have a fake ID when I’m old enough to go to a
… And that’s when it hit me.
    “Max, how old are you?”
    “Ben, how old are
you?
”
    A beat. I squinted at him and said, “How old do you think I am?”
    “Dunno. I never really thought about it. What, are you, like, twenty-three?”
    I shook my head. This was bad.
    “Okay … twenty-two … Twenty-one?” He was smiling.
    This was not good. This was not good. This was so not good.
    I proposed that we both say our ages at the exact same time.
    “You’re on,” he said. He was starting to look a little worried.
    “All right. You be the counter.”
    Max held three fingers up. One went down. Two went down. The third went down and I yelled out, “Twenty-seven!”
    Max was silent.
    “Twenty-seven!” I yelled again, trying to keep my sense of humor, “Max … it’s your turn.”
    He smiled weakly. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t freak out. It’s not a big deal.”
    “Go on.”
    “I’m twenty.”
    It took me a minute to scrape my jaw off the bar.
    “You’re joking.”
    “I wouldn’t joke about that.”
    “You’re twenty?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Twenty.”
    “Yeah.”
    Twenty.
    “Um, would you excuse me for a minute?” I didn’t know where to go, so I made a dash for the bathroom, knocking over some guy’s
     beer on the way and not even stopping to say sorry. I wanted to splash cold water on my face. Then I got there and realized
     I was wearing makeup so I couldn’t. Instead I snuck a cigarette in the bathroom stall. I wondered if everyone was thinking
     the same thing I was:
And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know
…
    When I got back, Max looked a little green. “I didn’t mean to mislead you,” he said. “I thought you might be a
little
older than me, because of the writing job and all, but only by a couple of years. You look
young,
B.”
    I ignored the fact that he’d just shortened my name to one letter, which, I have to say, was pretty endearing.
    He asked, “Is it really such a big deal?”
    Maybe. Yes. Maybe. It certainly
felt
like a big deal. The first thing I wanted to know was whether or not he’d been lying to me. The company, the house, all of
     it. But Max’s answer made sense. He said he’d started the company his first year in college. He left to run it before the
     year was out, and that pretty much accounted for what had happened since. He was about to turn twenty-one, he said. In two
     weeks.
    “So I’m a cougar,” I moaned, putting my head in my hands.
    “A what?”
    “An older woman who picks up younger guys.”
    “They call that a cougar? That’s funny.”
    “It’s not.”
    “Oh, so what, right?” He put his hand over mine. “Look, I’m still the same guy. And, to be honest, I don’t really care how
     old you are. You’re too adorable to pass up.” I started to melt. He could sense it. “My little cougar,” he said, poking my
     ribs. “Grrrr.”
    Later, just before Max pulled the boxers off me once again (oh, like you would have gone