There's a lot that Craig's learned about his boss over the past two years from their end-of-the-week chats, such as Kyle's borderline irrational hatred for bananas—which he'd actually learned about by mistake. Being a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to candy, Craig always has something sweet tucked away in one of his desk drawers. He'll never forget the way Kyle's face had twisted in disgust when he'd bitten into a piece of banana-flavored Laffy Taffy that Craig had offered him without first reading the label. That was also the day he learned that Kyle was diabetic.

Craig knows a lot of other things about Kyle, too: that he enjoys listening to NPR during his lunch break; that he'd supposedly kicked Cartman's ass on multiple occasions back when they were kids; that he had to have a kidney transplant when he was just nine years old; that he has an adopted brother from Canada; that he's a diehard Denver Nuggets fan; and that he thinks The Cure's Disintegration is the best album ever.

Craig also knows that Kyle is one-hundred percent undoubtedly and certifiably gay.

It's not like it's obvious or anything. Kyle doesn't exactly ooze sexuality, and he's never outwardly admitted that he likes men, either. It'd be stereotypical to chalk up knowing simply because of how neat Kyle is and how he always smells so nice and clean despite very much being a guy, and Craig's pretty sure that the rumor about Kyle having drunken hate-sex with Cartman in the fourth floor utility closet that one time during a Christmas party the year before he started working there is just that—a rumor. If anything, Kyle's almost familial relationship with Wendy from HR is probably the only thing that has ever struck Craig as being bit strange, considering the fact that Wendy seems exactly like the type of girl that Kyle would be interested in, but even that doesn't matter anymore because Craig already has all the proof he needs.

"Finally caved and made a Grindr, huh?"

Craig swifty closes out of the app and looks up to find the café busboy, Kenny, leaning over his shoulder with a lopsided grin. His apron is covered in coffee stains and his hands are filled with empty mugs and plates from past customers.

"So what if I did?"

"Nothing." Kenny shrugs. "Just surprised you actually took my advice for once."

"I'm just checking it out."

"Pfft. That's what they all say."

Craig scowls as Kenny takes the seat across from him after setting the dirty dishes down on a nearby unoccupied table. He wouldn't mind so much if Kenny had just asked first, but then again, Kenny's never cared about intruding before.

Craig's known Kenny for about three months now, ever since he started working the second shift here at the little 24-hour café that Craig often frequents in the evening after work or whenever he needs to get away from his roommate and best friend, Clyde. Unlike his boss, Craig can't say that he knows all that much about Kenny aside from the basics: that he'd moved to Denver about a year ago and that he unironically watches NASCAR. They only ever see each other a few times a week and their conflicting schedules keep Craig from actually having to concede to Kenny's annoyingly persistent requests that they hang out sometime, but for the most part he thinks that Kenny is alright. Kenny's the one who'd told him about Grindr.

"Grindr?"

"Yeah. It's like Tinder for gay guys," Kenny had said. "My roommate uses it. He's gay too. Well, bisexual, but whatever." Then he furrowed his brow. "Actually, hey, are you into redheads?"

"I don't need a dating app."

"I'm just saying, everyone's using it. He's only had it for like a week so far but he's already gotten a ton of messages. He's too chicken shit to actually meet up with anyone, though. Figures."

Craig had tapped out around that point. He wasn't going to be persuaded into using some stupid hookup app by a guy who he was willing to bet had contracted at least three different STDs at some point in his life. Craig was content with his guinea pigs and his admittedly-weird one-sided pseudo-thing he had going on with his boss, and he had no intention of rocking the boat anytime soon. Besides, his phone's memory was almost full from all the pictures he had saved, anyway.

But then Craig thought about it—because if Grindr really was as popular as Kenny was making it out to be, then there was probably a chance that Kyle was using it, too. Kyle was no stranger to online dating and Craig knew that. He'd once found the remnants of an old, abandoned OKCupid account belonging to one "K. Broflovski" from South Park while doing a simple Google search for Kyle's LinkedIn profile, so it really didn't seem like such an unlikely possibility. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to just check and potentially even confirm his deep-rooted suspicions about his boss's sexual orientation. So one night while binge watching Firefly, he did—and he was left wishing that he'd downloaded the dumb app sooner when his suspicions were confirmed less than an hour later.

Kyle, 24
Seen 38 min ago 3 miles away
"Looking to meet some new people!"

The description was vague and the picture was from the neck down, but Craig knew it was Kyle the second he saw that charcoal gray University of Colorado t-shirt poking out from beneath an unbuttoned red and black flannel; it was the same exact outfit Kyle had worn to work the day he was running late because he'd been up all night with a cold and didn't have the energy to get dressed. Besides, it wasn't like there was anybody else named Kyle within a 10-mile radius who was also 5'11'', Jewish, and, "Ready to start a new chapter in life." That last line practically reeked of Kyle, and if all of that still wasn't enough to prove anything, then the distance between them gradually going from a mile to a mere 100 meters on Craig's short walk to the office one morning was. Unfortunately, however, Kyle must've realized that someone was more or less stalking him because his profile suddenly disappeared before Craig could get any closer.

When he got to the office minutes later, Kyle had seemed genuinely spooked. Craig couldn't help but feel sort of bad for probably scaring the shit out of him, but at least he finally had some concrete, irrefutable proof that his boss was, in fact, gay. Grindr was definitely worth the 9.21 megabytes he had to free up to download it.

"You look like shit."

Kenny laughs. "You always know just what to say to make a guy feel good, don't you?" he says, then pushes his messy blonde hair back out of his face. He slumps down against the back of his chair and sighs. "My roommate just got fired the other day so we've been drinking and playing Madden all night. It's pretty good. I haven't slept yet."

"The gay one?"

"No, the straight one."

Kenny has two roommates, the friends he'd apparently moved to Denver to be with. He likes to jokingly refer to them as "the gay one" and "the straight one," although for Craig it's the only way he can actually distinguish between the two. Most of his earlier conversations with Kenny had been spent trying to drown him out with his headphones on, so Craig never managed to catch their names.

"That sucks."

"Yeah. They finally had enough of him refusing to euthanize the animals so they canned him."

"Euthanize?" Craig lifts a brow. "Did he work at a kill shelter or something?"

"Ha! That guy wouldn't last a week at a kill shelter," Kenny says, then yawns. "He was a vet tech. Didn't I ever tell you?"

"I don't remember."

"More like you don't listen."

Craig can't argue with that. He shrugs and looks back down at his phone, opening Grindr and skimming through the sea of profiles, many of them blank and nameless like his own. It's been a few weeks since Kyle had deleted his profile after that little "stalking" incident, but Craig still likes to log in once in a while to check and see if maybe Kyle's made another. So far he hasn't.

"So you meet any hot guys yet or what?"

"I told you, I'm just checking it out."

"Mhmm. Right."

Craig glares at Kenny from over his idle laptop screen. Kenny stares back, except he's wearing that godawful smirk of his and wiggling his brows suggestively. Craig exhales sharply through his nose and puts his phone away. "For the record," he says, "that stupid app is nothing like Tinder."

"So you use Tinder?"

"I don't use anything."

"Well, Jesus, don't I feel bad for all the poor guys who are missing out."

"Did your other roommate ever stop dicking around and meet up with anyone from Grindr yet?" Craig asks, not really caring but wanting to change the focus of the conversation from himself. Kenny makes a noncommittal sound and bounces his shoulders.

"I don't even think he uses it anymore," he says, as if he knew that was what would happen. "Something about it being too dangerous, or invasive, or whatever. I dunno."

"I mean, it kind of is."

"How so?"

"It shows you how far away you are from other users," Craig explains. "Like just now it said the closest person was only a few hundred meters from me. It probably wouldn't be too hard to track someone down if you seriously wanted to."

"Yeah, he said something about that after he was done chewing my ass out for twenty minutes for 'trying to get him killed' or whatever. Like it's supposed to be my fault he didn't think about disabling his location," Kenny complains, although he sounds a lot more amused than upset. "Honestly, I never would've even told him about Grindr if I knew he was gonna freak out and accuse me of attempted murder. He's such a spaz sometimes."

"Wait, you told him about Grindr?"

"Well I was originally gonna talk him into making an eHarmony account, but I heard some guys talking about Grindr on the bus to work and like—seriously? 'Grindr?' C'mon, that just sounds so much cooler," Kenny says. Craig stares at him. "What? He's never gonna get over his stupid crush if he doesn't at least try to meet other people."

"I guess," Craig eventually concedes. He hadn't been expecting an explanation. He already knows the story about Kenny's roommate and the unrequited crush they have on one of their coworkers, or IT guys, or whoever; but Craig had been under the impression that Kenny had learned about Grindr from his roommate, and hearing that it was actually the other way around came as a bit of a shock—although in retrospect, he thinks he should've known. "You probably should've just went with eHarmony if that's the case. Grindr doesn't really seem like it's good for anything besides hooking up."

"Are you kidding me? That's the best way to get over someone," Kenny says. "Besides, he needs to get laid. Poor guy's so high strung, I'm pretty sure he hasn't had his dick touched in months."

"Wow, I really don't need to know that."

Kenny laughs. "What, are you a prude?"

"No. I just don't want to hear about your sad roommate's dick problems."

"Well that's too bad, 'cause you're just his type," Kenny drawls with a toothy grin. "Tall, dark, and boring as fuck."

"Not interested."

"Jesus Christ, man, what are you doing!" Kenny's manager shouts from somewhere out of sight. Craig glances towards the front of the café to see his childhood friend, Tweek, poking his head out from the back storeroom, eyes wide and fixated on the carefree blond sitting across from him. "We've got a rush coming in!"

Kenny rolls his eyes. "Dude, Tweek. Chill. I'm just taking a quick five minute break while the shop's still empty, alright? Relax." He waves his hand as if to shoo away his neurotic boss's worries. This does not placate Tweek in the least.

"How am I supposed to relax when we're almost out of clean mugs!" he panics. "It's almost six o'clock! Do you know what happens when we don't have clean mugs at six o'clock? We get fucked, Ken! Fucked!"

"But it's Sund—"

"Fucked!"

"Alright, alright! Jeez. I'm coming, you little psychopath." Kenny groans and pushes himself up. He shoots Craig a look. "The offer to help my friend get laid still stands," he tells him.

"Not interested," Craig dismisses.

Kenny snorts and heads for the front, gently shouldering past a twitching Tweek while mumbling something under his breath about having to smoke him out one of these days. Tweek sputters an "Oh, God!" before following after him. Craig wonders how long it'll take for Kenny to realize that he'd forgotten to grab the dirty dishes before Tweek does and has a conniption fit. Tweek's always been a mess.

When Craig is finally left alone, he wakes his laptop and goes back to what he'd been doing prior to getting distracted by ridiculous apps and noisy people, moving the last of the photos from his Canon camera's SD card to his desktop to then be sorted and organized into their designated and meticulously-labeled folders. The photos aren't of anything special—mostly landscapes, animals, indifferent self portraits scattered among pictures of family and friends—but there are a few candid shots of Kyle that Craig had managed to sneak from around Denver last month when Kyle wasn't paying attention. The one where he's trying to take a bite out of a loaded chili cheese dog without making a mess is Craig's favorite.

Craig's phone vibrates against his thigh just as he finishes sorting through the pictures. He ejects the SD card and pops it back into his camera before he forgets, tucks the camera back into its bag at his feet, and takes out his phone. He has two new text messages: one from Clyde, and one from Kyle.

Received 6:02 PM
Can you stop at BK or TB on the way home? Hungry af

Received 5:31 PM
Sorry to bother you on your day off, but do you know by any chance if the desk in front of Clyde's is still broken? Or did it ever get switched out? Thanks again for all the help! The video was great!

The faint beginning of a smirk just barely tugs at the corner of Craig's lips; he hadn't even realized that Kyle had texted him earlier. Craig shoots Clyde a quick "Sure," and lets Kyle know—in more than one word—that the desk is definitely still busted. He also reminds Kyle that talking the intern into armchair jousting with Jimmy's crutches was Clyde's dumb idea and that he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Kyle replies back minutes later with an eye-roll emoji and, "Ugh, don't remind me. Poor David. First day at the office and Clyde already maimed him lol." Craig doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

While the café begins to swell with its usual Sunday evening rush, Craig spends the next forty minutes reading through Kyle's most recent article; it's a behemoth, clocking in at almost 5,200 words, and Craig's eyes nearly glaze over just at the title alone. It's supposed to be the last political piece that Kyle writes for the rest of the year, but Craig knows better than to actually believe that from a guy who double majored in poli sci and journalism willingly. Craig doesn't care for politics, but he enjoys keeping up with Kyle's often world affairs-heavy opinion column nonetheless, though he really only skims through for bits and pieces of Kyle's impassioned rants and sometimes scathing remarks towards whatever, or whoever, pissed him off that week.

Craig's phone lights up just as he gets to the end of the article. It's another text from Kyle.

Received 6:48 PM
So I hear there's supposed to be a meteor shower next weekend.

Craig doesn't know what to say to that either, so again, he says nothing.