After the dream I had, I couldn't sit back and wait anymore. There were questions that needed answers, so I called Clayton this afternoon.

"Hello?" He was chomping away on something.

"Are you chewing on your toenails again?!"

"No! I don't do that anymore!"

"Okay, then."

"I'm eating some lima bean pie." He explained.

"That's disgusting. I like lima beans as much as the next guy, but in a pie? No. I don't do that."

"It doesn't taste like lima beans though. It tastes like pumpkin."

"Says you!"

"It's true!"

"When I want something that tastes like pumpkin, I'll eat a pumpkin. Not a bean."

"Your loss."

"Fine."

We were both quiet for a long time. He was busy chewing and I was hesitant to ask my question. I was also hesitant to interrupt The Aiken as he ate. But since he had a bad habit of hanging up on me, I decided I better ask in case he decided to prematurely end the conversation.

"I called because I have a question."

"Mmmhmm." He mumbled through his food.

"So I had this dream that we were making out and then we found out we're brother and sister."

"Weird."

"Yeah. So I was wondering, say it does turn out that we're related, would that bother you? I mean I know you're from North Carolina. Do they do that there?"

"No, they don't do that there! Stop degrading my home state!"

"Oh. Maybe I'm thinking of Alabama. That's where Ruben is from, right? Figures..."

A heavy silence hung over the line. He had stopped eating.

"I'm just sayin'. I'm trying to find a loophole in case we are somehow related so that we can still go out."

"Why would you wanna go out with me if I was your brother?"

"Do you always ask stupid questions?" I said.

The heavy silence returned. This time he was the one who finally broke it.

"Anyway, I'm sure we're not related."

"Well, my boyfriend says-"

"Wait, wait. If you have a boyfriend, why are you asking me out?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"But I'm not asking you out." He said.

"So you DO have a boyfriend?"

"For cryin' out... No! All I said was I'm not asking you out."

"What? Are you asking me out?"

"I gotta go now. I got a tour to get ready for."

"I'm catching the show in Chicago."

He gave me an unenthusiastic "great" and hung up the phone.

Let's just hope the dream version of Maya was wrong.