Page 1 of Canned & Coated

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“You don’t have to limit yourself, Nate.”

Milo’s eyes flick from the road to the box of donuts in my lap, then back up to me. I can tell he’s clocked my hand hovering over a blueberry glazed.

Close enough to count as temptation, but not close enough to give in.

“Have as many as you want,” he says.

I barely even consider it before I'm snapping the lid shut and tossing the box into the back seat.

“I shouldn't,” I say, shaking my head.

Milo barks out a laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that doesn’t stay in his chest but spills everywhere, filling up any space you're in like it’s looking for somewhere to land. In the small car it rattles through the seats and into the steering wheel until even that starts to shake with him.

“Oh my god,” he says, “are you afraid of the donuts?”

“I’m not afraid,” I tell him, “I don’t want to ruin dinner.”

“We’re camping. Dinner is gonna be hot dogs and half a protein bar,” he says, one hand on the wheel as the other reaches towards the backseat, fingers searching until they catch on the edge of the box. “Give it to me!”

“Eyes on the road!” I shout, clutching the oh-shit handle as we veer into the opposite lane.

I’m being dramatic. I know I’m being dramatic. There haven’t been any cars for miles, but this is how Milo is. He’s a disaster of pure energy stuffed into a 5’7 body that frankly does not seem equipped to contain him.

Pale skin, thinning dark hair stuffed under a faded ball cap, stubble everywhere, and a 1970s porno mustache that hovers a little too confidently over his lip.

The kicker is the glasses. Circular horn-rims that make him look like he teaches high school drama when he’s not doing mushrooms in the woods.

Today he’s sporting a flannel shirt, cutoff jean shorts, and knee socks pulled to hell. He looks like a gay summer camp counselor from a vintage PSA about stranger danger.

It’s hot though. In it’s own way. Which is annoying. Because he drives like a man who’s never feared death and flirts like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.

I’m the opposite in every regard. I would rather fake my own death than flirt openly. If I’m interested in someone, my instinct is to become less visible somehow. Quieter. More polite. Maybe develop a sudden fascination with whatever object happens to be nearest me.

Nothing says desire quite like studying the closest object with intense concentration.

The problem is that, physically, I’m not built for subtlety. I’m tall and lanky. All long limbs and awkward angles. Pale skin that burns if the sun even hears about me. Brown hair that never does what I ask of it. Brown eyes so standard they feel selected from a dropdown menu.

There’s nothing offensive about how I look. Nothing remarkable either. I’m the human version of room-temperature water.

Perfectly acceptable. Rarely requested.

Where Milo looks intentional and effortless, I look like I wandered into my closet in low light and accepted whatever happened.

Flannel shirts. Jeans. Neutral colors. All regular clothes you’d see on any unremarkable man pushing a cart through a hardware store or standing too long in front of lawn fertilizer. It’s the wardrobe of someone who says things like “let me grab my good flashlight.”

Or a dad. Definitely a dad.

Not even a hot dad. Just… a dad with dependable opinions about extension cords.

“You’re weak, Nate,” he declares with a mouthful of donut since he somehow managed to grab one anyway.

The blueberry glazed. The exact one I wanted and the last one in the box.

I sit there and sigh as he grins at me, teeth dotted with crumbs.

“You’re one sad whiff away from selling your soul for that last maple glaze,” he says.