Anywhere you go, you don't need a reason

 

Pan nursed his thumbnail. How should he do it? It had been going over and over in his head for so long now. What was Ari going to think?

"Geeze, you're not even worried what your mother might think," Wade squinted back. "Not even your brother."

He was busy trying to cut potatoes for chips to put in the air fryer. Pan was certain the meat patties would never thaw out and the burgers would be bloody. Just the way Wade liked them. He hugged himself and went to look in the fridge for the lettuce and tomato.

"You know, my mom loves you and Gabe..Gabe wouldn't care."

"If you say so," Wade went on with the slicing. "I don't know why you even care what Ari thinks about us."

"It's just, he's been a good friend. I feel like I've let him down." Pan was even-lipped, but he felt bad about it.

"He's too busy to care. He's got that friend from the UK. He and Jade are going to get married. He's not gonna care." Wade made it sound like a promise.

"Uh-huh." Pan went to wash the fresh lettuce. He found the onion already peeled and sliced in a zip-locked baggie. Evidently, Wade took care of that already. Oh, how he loved sharpened knives and what they could do. He was an artist in the kitchen.

"Tell you what, we'll just invite Ari and Jade out for steaks. And we can just tell them..that.."

Even Wade couldn't say it.

"That we're a couple?" Pan looked at him blankly.

"No. They'll just figure it out." He was serious. Pan sighed and ripped the lettuce in bits. Just like Wade said it was nobody's business but their own.