I love writing Adam!

Anyway, hope you all like this chapter, and by the way, finishing up in ten chapters is not happening after all.

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Disorientated, Gordo woke several hours later to noises in his room and a whispered exclamation of "Ouch!"

Gordo lifted his head. "Dad?" As smart as his father was, he could never maneuver successfully in the dark.

"No, it's me, Adam," came the distinct, familiar voice. "I'm trying not to wake you."

"Too late," Gordo said. "Here. Wait." He leaned across to the nightstand and turned on a decorative lamp that threw swirls of color around the room. "Better?"

"At least I won't stub my toe again. What was that, anyway? Ah! The old skateboard. So you have been practicing."

"A little," Gordo said. "I can do the ollie now. Most of the time."

He watched the shadow of his cousin move around the room. Adam removed his wristwatch and found a flat surface to lay it on, then made his way cautiously to the sofa, where he threw himself down with an exhausted sigh.

Gordo looked at his clock and noticed it was almost midnight. "How long have you been here?" he asked Adam.

"It was almost eight when we got in," Adam said. "I've been downstairs, helping in the kitchen."

Gordo laughed. "Licking the spoons?"

"Hey! Somebody's got to do it!" Adam reasoned. "Can't you smell it?"

Gordo took a deep whiff. "Pumpkin pie?"

"Two of them."

"What else?"

"Apple pie. Rice pudding. And some kind of ambrosia stuff," Adam informed.

Gordo moaned. "Rice pudding…" Maybe it wasn't going to be such a bad Thanksgiving after all, with his mom preparing his favorite comfort foods.

"So what's up with you anyway?" Adam asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Asleep since four o'clock? Your mom said it was 'girl trouble.'"

"Thanks, Mom," Gordo said sarcastically.

"Would that girl be the famous Lizzie McGuire I'm always hearing so much about?" Adam wondered.

The room was dark enough, and it was late enough that at last Gordo felt he might be able to talk about everything that had him so depressed. Besides, this was Adam. If he couldn't talk to him, then who could he talk to?

The great thing about talking to Adam was that Gordo knew none of what he said might "accidentally leak" to anyone in school, thus setting off a cascade of gossip and rumors. So he spilled his guts for the better part of an hour.

Gordo lay on his bed, staring at the swirling colors on the ceiling as he talked and talked. For the longest time he heard only his own voice, so eventually he lifted his head and looked at Adam laying on the sofa and said, "Dude! Are you still awake?"

"Oh, yeah," Adam said. "I'm just thinking about a lot of stuff, remembering a lot of stuff. Something similar happened to me once. Unrequited love…it sucks! I feel for you."

"So what did you do?" Gordo asked .. "I mean, how did you get past it?"

"There's not much you can do," Adam said, "except let Time do its little magic trick of healing all wounds."

"Every day will be a little bit easier?" Gordo asked, his voice tinged with cynicism.

"I know it's hard to believe that now," Adam said. "But believe me, it works. And in your case, it sounds like you may have some ointment to put on this wound to help it heal faster."

"What do you mean?"

"This girl Nicole you've mentioned several times already," Adam said. "It sounds like she really digs you."

Gordo scoffed. "Yeah, but for how long? If I keep acting like a jerk, like I have been, I'm gonna blow that too."

"Well, there's an easy solution to this problem," Adam suggested. "Quit acting like a jerk."

"And how do I do that?"

"Well, for one thing, you've got to ask her out."

"Yeah…but…" Gordo said uneasily, "what if she turns me down? I don't think I could handle that kind of rejection, coming so soon after that whole big thing with Lizzie."

"Davey! Didn't you tell me she gave you her phone number?"

"Yeah," Gordo said, holding up his hand and looking at the numbers in the dim light of his room. "She wrote it on my hand."

Adam sat up suddenly. "Did you just say she wrote her phone number on your hand? What are you --- mental? What could possibly make you think she would turn you down after she wrote her phone number on your freakin' hand?"

"I don't know!" Gordo exclaimed. His doubts did sound pretty ridiculous when Adam put it that way.

Adam sighed, practically laughing. "You know, Davey, you are a pretty smart kid, most of the time. But it's not doing you any good when it comes to the ladies." Adam lay down again and said, "Now tell me about this Nicole. Let's start with…what does she look like?"

Gordo described Nicole's long straight hair, her greenish eyes, her sometimes crooked smile, and he found himself smiling as he thought about it. Adam asked what was the best thing about her. She's smart, Gordo said. And funny, sometimes... the subtle kind of funny that he enjoyed, but other people might not even pick up on. But she wasn't always funny, because she held very serious and passionate opinions about certain issues, like gun control and world hunger.

"An activist, hmmm?" Adam said, thinking about a certain girl he was currently intrigued by.

"She's just politically very very sure of where she stands," Gordo said.

"As are you," Adam pointed out.

"We're very alike," Gordo realized.

"And that's a good thing?"

"I don't know," Gordo said. "To a certain extent I think it is. I know they say that opposites attract, but I'm not sure how true that is. I mean they do attract, but in the long run is it really going to work out? What do you think?"

"About opposites?" Adam said. "Why? Who's your opposite? Would that be Lizzie?"

Adam had sparked a whole new train of thought and Gordo was at it again, analyzing and reasoning through "Lizzie vs. Nicole" and which one would be a better match for him. Refreshed from his long nap, Gordo felt he could travel on this train for hours, but when he checked with Adam this time, there was no reply but a restless snore.

Gordo didn't know how long he had been talking to himself, but now that he was aware, he felt foolish to go on. Yet the debate continued in his head, even as he ventured out of his room, ravenously hungry in the middle of the night, and raided the fridge, helping himself to some of tomorrow's rice pudding.

Food made him feel better. Having Adam here made him feel better. He looked at Nicole's phone number on his hand, and that definitely made him feel better. He made a decision. He was going to call her.

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The next day was all about family. Gordo enjoyed seeing his favorite aunt and uncle, and he and Adam also had a chance to catch up on everything, not just the drama in his own life. Adam provided picturesque details all about college life, which sounded great, but made Gordo all the more anxious to get there himself.

While the turkey was cooking, the "boys" had a chance to go down to the park and work on their skateboarding. Adam had brought along his new board, knowing he and Davey would have plenty of time to continue their lessons.

After a fabulous meal, they joined their dads in the living room, watching football. Then, it was time for desert. After that, they took a leisurely skateboarding trek (no tricks) down to the video store, where they rented a few movies and video games. The rest of the day was spent indoors, eating leftovers while they watched and played till practically two in the morning.

Gordo set his alarm clock for ten a.m. No matter how tired he was, he didn't want the day to slip away without calling Nicole. Earlier in the week, when they had lunched together, Nicole explained her Thanksgiving plans to Gordo by briefly singing "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go!" Gordo wasn't sure exactly where that was, but he had the impression she would be out all day. He wanted to catch her early, but not too early, on Friday. Ten o'clock sounded like a reasonable time to call.

On the first call, he spoke with a child, who informed Gordo that his sister was in the shower. Gordo told him to tell Nicole that Dave had called. An hour passed. Gordo called again. This time he got Nicole's mother, who said Nicole had just left for the mall. Did she get his message? What message? Who did he leave a mesage with? Justin? Tsk! That kid never relayed messages. Nicole's mother said she was so sorry, and when Nicole called in later this afternoon, she would mention that Dave had called her this morning.

"Bad luck," Adam said. "But you'll hook up with her later. Come on, let's go down the park again."

It was a beautiful day and they spent a good deal of it skateboarding. After a while, Tudge and Meryl appeared at their usual table, playing Chess, and Gordo was happy to introduce his cousin Adam. They all took turns playing chess, and discovered that statistically Adam played better than Tudge or Gordo, but still not as good as Meryl. She was a tough one to beat.

As evening drew close, their stomachs rumbled and they skated home for more Thanksgiving leftovers.

-

"So what will you boys be up to tonight?" Aunt Suzie wondered at the dinner table.

"Davey's going to show me what's fun in this town," Adam told his mother.

Gordo smirked. What was fun in this town? The mall, the movies? Been there, done that.

"So I can use the car, right?" Adam said. "I mean, if you need to go anywhere, Uncle Howie will drive you in his car, right?"

So Adam got the car. Gordo had never been driving with him before. When he visited in New York City, nobody drove cars. As they drove they talked about driving, until suddenly Adam pulled into the empty parking lot of the Food Giant that had closed over a year ago.

"Enough talking," Adam said, turning off the car. "Show me what you can do."

Gordo laughed. "Do about what?"

"About driving. Come on, let's switch seats."

"Are you crazy?" Gordo exclaimed. "You're going to let me drive? Have you forgotten I'm only fourteen?"

"So?" Adam said. "I bet you can already drive better than half the people on the road right now."

"I doubt it," Gordo said.

Which was precisely why Adam was doing this. He knew his cousin needed a confidence booster after all the 'girl trouble' he'd been through, and nothing said manly confidence like four wheels and eight cylinders at your command.

Thus Gordo had his first driving lesson, under the express condition that he not hit anything and he never talk of this to anyone, especially either set of their parents. Adam was as good at teaching driving as he was at teaching skateboarding moves, and happily concluded that his objective of boosting Gordo's self-confidence was easily achieved.

However, later that night, something happened which wiped it all out.