Chapter 20

"Swear to God,I really am allergic to salad." Daniel raised his voice over the exhaust fan sucking up steam from the pasta pot in front of him.

"Seems awfully convenient," Joel said from Daniel's tablet, propped against the toaster. "You're only allergic to foods you hate." There came the sound of creaking metal. "My bread is getting a serious tan. Don't let yours burn."

Daniel peeked inside the oven to check on the Italian loaf. "It's not convenient. I hate certain raw veggies because I'm allergic to them, because they've always made me feel weird inside." Using a slotted spoon, he lifted a ravioli from the pot and pinched a corner. Perfect. "When I was a kid I'd tell my mom, ‘My ears itch!' after she fed me carrots, and she was like, ‘Well, scratch them!' and I was like, ‘No, they itch inside my head.' She said I was a lunatic. Anyhow, it has something to do with pollen, which is why cooked vegetables are fine."

"Interesting. Hang on, I need to set the table." Joel zipped offscreen.

Daniel drained the pasta in the colander, then hurried back to the stove to taste the simmering marinara sauce.

Also perfect. He grabbed the bottle of acid reducer tablets and swallowed one so the tomatoes and wine wouldn't burn a hole in his stomach. Getting older sucked sometimes.

Luna came to the kitchen threshold and sniffed the air.

"Sorry," he told her. "No chicken or tuna magically falling from the sky tonight."

She sauntered back toward the couch with a tail-swish of disapproval.

"Do you ever have hay fever?" Joel asked, reappearing onscreen.

"Depends where I'm shooting during allergy season. Why?"

"I looked it up." Joel waggled his phone beside his head. "Turns out some fruits and vegetables have the same pollen as common seasonal allergens like ragweed and mugwort."

"Told you."

"I still reserve the right to give you shit about not eating salad." Joel rubbed his hands together. "Ready for our big V-Day date? I wore my fanciest loungewear." He angled his screen down from his aubergine button-down shirt, then turned and wiggled his ass, which was clad in stoplight-red pajama pants featuring cartoon polar bears.

"Nice." Daniel swaddled the Italian loaf in a cloth napkin and brought it to the dining table with his pasta, then went back to retrieve Joel—or rather, to retrieve the tablet, which he leaned against the bread basket. Finally he lit a quartet of scarlet taper candles and switched off the overhead light.

"I can barely see you—or be seen by you." Joel leaned close to his screen, his face distorted by the webcam's wide field of view.

"The candlelight was your idea." Daniel shifted the candles closer so he wouldn't look like a federally protected witness giving a TV interview, then tucked a cloth napkin inside his collar to keep marinara off his favorite ivory dress shirt.

"I thought it'd be romantic. Instead it's a bit Blair Witch Project." Joel brought a candle beneath his chin. "I just want to apologize," he whispered, eyes darting, "to Mike's mom, Josh's mom, and my mom. We're gonna die out here!"

"You're gonna burn your beard off." Daniel filled his glass from the bottle of Syrah that Joel had chosen for the occasion. "Wine ready?"

"Right here." Joel held up his glass. In the dim light, the red wine looked black. "To good news."

"Cheers." As they brought their glasses up to their cameras, Daniel tapped his with a spoon to replicate the toasting clink. "Wait, what good news?"

Joel beamed. "I joined a study on the efficacy of Covid vaccines for patients at various stages of hematological malignancies—blood or lymph cancers, that is."

The wine soured in Daniel's mouth. "The vaccine might not work for you?" His daydreamed images of their reunion began to fade like overexposed photos.

"It probably will, but they'll find out for sure. Sometimes chemo can keep you immunosuppressed for a year or more, depending on the regimen. They'll test my blood for antibodies before and after the shots."

"So you'll know for sure whether you're protected?"

"Exactly, which is more than most people get. Plus, I'll have the vaccine early, so I'll have bragging rights for being vaxxed before you. Now let's eat before our pasta gets cold."

Daniel picked up his fork. "This should be interesting." He carved off half of a marinara-slathered ravioli, then took a bite. The filling was smooth, with a burst of mellow herbs, just like real ricotta. "It's not half-bad, this vegan pasta."

"Mmmph?" Joel swallowed audibly. "You bought the vegan version?"

"Weren't we supposed to eat the same meal tonight, to make like one of us had cooked for the other?"

"But you didn't have to—Daniel, that's so sweet." Joel wiped his mouth and set down his napkin. "You know, if you came here, you could still eat meat."

If you came here.The first time Joel had mentioned an in-person reunion. Progress!

"I wouldn't cook meat for you," Joel continued, "because I don't know how, but if we went out—" He sat back in his chair. "Eating in a restaurant feels like a fantasy."

"It's Valentine's Day. Reality is optional."

"Good point. Might as well pretend we're in Paris." He looked off camera and said something in French ending in s'il vous pla?t and then merci.

"What did you ask your imaginary waiter?"

Joel gave a coy chin tilt. "You'll see."

Intriguing. They'd ordered desserts to be delivered to each other by a local bakery or restaurant. Joel had already received his box of pistachio cream–filled chocolate vegan cupcakes. Daniel's dessert apparently needed to be "100% fresh" and "consumed under supervision, preferably filmed." Knowing Joel, it was probably a pile of hash brownies.

As they continued eating in a companionable silence, Daniel's skin hummed with fresh excitement. They'd hung out together several evenings these last two weeks—watching movies on Netflix Party, solving a virtual escape room, and sometimes just being accountability partners while they worked. Joel had even brought Daniel to his weekly virtual board-game night with his grad-school buddies, who had welcomed him into their ever-expanding circle of gamers.

In short, he and Joel had become friends. Pals, even.

But tonight was a date-date.

"Listen to that," Joel said.

Daniel paused. Was there music in the background? "Listen to what?"

"Another person's fork clinking against their plate. When was the last time you heard that noise?"

"Jesus. I can't remember." Such a mundane sound—one that had inhabited every day of his life, from Mom's kitchen to college cafeterias to hundreds of cafes, bars, and restaurants—had been lost.

But they'd found it again tonight.

"So now that we're sort of, um, dating?" He waited for Joel's nod of confirmation. "I've been wondering something." He took a sip of wine for courage.

"Yes, I still give excellent head."

Daniel coughed. Wine splattered onto his plate and tablet.

"At least, I assume it's like riding a bike," Joel continued as Daniel sputtered, "where you retain muscle memory no matter how long it's been since your last ride."

Daniel took a cautious gulp of water to ease the spasms in his throat. "Good to know." He coughed again. "So my other question…"

"Yes?" Joel's voice was smirky sweet.

"Just curious." He wiped the drops of wine from his screen. "How long did you and Sam stay together after we saw each other?"

Joel went still, long enough it seemed like his connection had frozen. "About two months."

Uh-oh. "What happened? Was it because…"

"Because of you? Yes, but it wasn't your fault. Sam found the drafts."

"Drafts of what?"

"Of my goodbye note to you. I didn't want you to find them in the hotel room trash can, so I stuffed them in a pocket of my laptop bag. They spilled onto our living room floor, and Sam helped me pick them up." Joel shifted ravioli around his pasta bowl. "Funny how the guy who wanted an open relationship changed his mind after I had a meaningful one-night stand."

The word meaningful was doing a lot of rescue work there. "How many drafts?"

"Nine or ten."

"Nine or ten?!"

Joel motioned to himself with his fork tines. "Does that honestly surprise you?"

"I guess not." Out on the pier that night, Joel had seemed torn about sleeping with him. But once they were inside his hotel room, he'd shown zero hesitation.

Or maybe Daniel had seen only what he'd wanted to see. "Your rose-colored glasses will never need a new prescription," Vanessa had once told him.

"So, after that, Sam was…hard to live with."

This conversation belonged in a well-lit room, not in dim shadows where faces went unreadable. "How so?"

"Making little comments now and then to shame me. Nothing I did made him feel loved. God knows I tried." Joel set down his fork with a soft clank. "Things kind of exploded that July. We went to see Before Sunset, the sequel to Before Sunrise—that movie about the twenty-something couple who meet on a train and then spend one romantic night in Vienna?"

Daniel nodded, the back of his neck turning cold. "I remember those movies," he said, nearly adding all too well.

"So you know how in Before Sunset, the same couple meet again in Paris nine years later, and this time, they stay together?" Joel folded his hands together above his plate. "It made me cry, right there in the movie theater. And I never cry, like, ever, especially in public."

Daniel swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Why did you cry?"

"Because all I could think about was how you and I had had that second chance like they had in the movie, and I blew it. I fucking blew it with you." Joel picked up a pale object, maybe a chunk of bread, and swished it around his plate, not looking at the camera. "After the movie, Sam was like, ‘Am I the wife back home? Is he the hot French chick?' And finally I was like, ‘Yes! Dan is the hot French chick. But I'm with you, and we're not in a fucking movie.' A week later my dog and I moved out."

"Joel, I-I'm so sorry. I never meant to?—"

"I know you never meant to, and like I said, it wasn't your fault." Joel bit into his bread, then shook his head vigorously, seeming to signal he wasn't done talking. "Being with you made me realize I wanted more than ‘good enough,'" he said with his mouth full. Then he swallowed. "I wanted spectacular. I wanted you. But I couldn't have you."

Wait, what? "How did you know you couldn't have me, when you never bothered to ask?"

"You were still in the closet. In Wyoming, no less. I wasn't ready to uproot my life and move west."

"I could've moved east. I could've come out. We could've found a way to be together—or at least discussed it. But you made that decision for both of us."

"I know. It wasn't fair, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dan. I mean, Daniel. Shit, you keep changing your name. I can't keep up."

Nope. No digressions. Not this time. "The day you left didn't have to be the end. If you had regrets later, you could've reached out."

"I did!"

Daniel sat back in his chair. "When? How?"

Joel swiped a hand over his mouth. "I tried, at least. That September, somewhere around Rosh Hashanah, I wanted to atone. To see if I could, I don't know, heal things between us, if there was still a chance. I went through about seventy-five Dan Evanses on MySpace to find you. I saw the pictures. Her engagement ring." His voice drooped at the end of the sentence. "I was too late."

That closeup of Vanessa's hand. The tiny diamond catching the sunlight just so. The rapid-fire click of his shutter, capturing the moment when Daniel's world had truly righted itself for the first time since that day in the meadow.

"It wasn't some spur-of-the-moment rebound thing. Vanessa and I had been together off and on for five years."

"What made you finally take the plunge?"

Daniel's gruff laugh rasped his throat. "You know that movie Before Sunset, about the couple who meet up in?—"

"You're shitting me."

"I shit you not." He stabbed another piece of ravioli, hungry despite his stomach trying to climb into his mouth. "It was a romantic movie about second chances. She proposed, and I said yes. Got hitched in October and I started the adoption process for Hailey a week later."

Joel put his head in his hands. "So half a year after we saw each other, you were married with a kid, and I was alone. I guess that's justice for the way I left you."

"You don't deserve to be alone. Not then and not now."

Joel made a skeptical noise, then took a long sip of wine. "Whatever happened to you and Vanessa?"

Was this how they were going to spend Valentine's dinner, surveying each other's emotional landscapes like a couple of old geezers with metal detectors?

But he'd been the one to bring up exes, so he owed Joel an answer. "Vanessa and I were content for a long time, but eventually we grew apart."

Joel waited a few moments, then spread his hands. "That's it? I give you the specific, proximate cause of my breakup with Sam, and all I get in return is, ‘eventually we grew apart'? No one ‘grows apart.'" He pumped his air quotes with such vigor, they made the candle flames shimmy. "People aren't tomato plants staying out of each other's sunlight. We're animals who need security and stimulation in just the right ratio."

For crying out loud. "Is that how you judge a relationship, on whether it has too much x or y?"

"It's an intuitive thing," Joel said. "You feel it in your bones."

"Feel what in my bones?"

"Boredom. Or fear. When you can minimize both, that's a good relationship. And of course, everyone has their own ideal ratio. One person's tedium is another's cozy comfort. One person's drama llama is another's manic pixie dreamboat."

So he'd boiled love down to a simple formula, a new Mendel's Law. What a load of crap.

"Joel, maybe you never grew apart from anyone because you pushed them all away."

Joel pulled his head back as though dodging the world's slowest punch. "Wow. Dude."

Daniel's scalp grew hot and tingly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." He'd hit a nerve—that much was obvious even in a darkened Zoom room.

Joel stared down into his pasta bowl. "You're not wrong, though."

"Still. I shouldn't have lashed out. And it's not fair for me to keep my relationship stories to myself after you shared yours. It's just that Vanessa is still my best friend, and it feels disloyal to talk about our breakup."

Joel's jaw shifted, as if he could tell that was a bullshit excuse, but then he nodded. "Makes sense. It's not the same as me and Sam." He picked up the wine bottle, then set it down again without filling his glass. "What are we doing here, Daniel?"

Oh hell. Was Joel applying his formula to their relationship? Had Daniel inspired too much boredom or too much fear?

"We're having dinner." The quaver in his voice belied his attempt at a joke.

"In general, what are we doing?" Joel's body seemed to vibrate, like a horse ready to bolt. "Where is this leading?"

Why was this even a question?

"Does it matter?" Daniel asked. "Can't we just enjoy what we have while we have it?"

"We should. I know we should." Joel's fingers formed claws, like he was trying to strangle the air. "But I don't know if I can."

Daniel froze, swallowing a dozen panicky replies. His next words could chase Joel away, maybe forever.

"What if we chill out a bit? Not lose touch again, but maybe not, you know, date? Just for now? We could cut these Zoom calls back to once a month and see how we feel."

"Yeah." Joel drew an audible breath in through his mouth. "Yeah, that'd be good. Thanks."

"I'm sorry I brought up Sam. That wasn't necessary."

"Yes, it was. We can't move forward until we know where we've been. Talking about Sam just brought up a lot of old feelings."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"There is when those feelings make me want to…"

Want to what? Give up? Hurt himself? Drop everything and drive to Omaha?

"…to hope." Joel placed his fingertips on the rim of his pasta bowl. "They make me want to hope, and that's the scariest feeling of all. Things have gotten worse and worse for so many years, the thought that they might get better just breaks my brain."

"I understand, believe me." He'd been in that place himself, the pit so dark and deep he couldn't see the ladder within his reach. "What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know." Joel's voice had turned small and soft. "But I think I need to figure it out before we can move forward."

"Okay." It was anything but okay. What if it had never been mere circumstances keeping them apart? What if all along, it was them?

They made a "not-date" for St. Patrick's night, then exchanged a pair of cringeworthy waves goodbye.

As Daniel quit Zoom, his doorbell rang. Luna leaped off the couch and dashed for the bedroom.

He went to the door and peered through the peephole. In the hallway was a dark-skinned guy wearing a cloth mask with the logo of the Cajun Cornhusker, a local New Orleans–style restaurant.

"Just a second." Daniel grabbed tip money and a surgical mask from the basket on the foyer shelf, then opened the door.

"Daniel Evans?" The delivery guy held a square white cardboard box on his fingertips. "Bananas Foster for you. Normally I'd come in and flambé it on your stove, but due to Covid concerns, you'll have to set it on fire yourself." He held up an unopened bottle of dark rum. "We recommend using this."

Daniel took the bottle. "Apparently this is my night for setting fires."

The young man raised an eyebrow. "Um, okay. There's instructions inside the box. Also, if you could sign this waiver saying you won't sue us if you or your property get burned?"

Back in his kitchen, Daniel opened the box. Inside lay a ripe banana, plus two covered insulated receptacles, one containing two scoops of vanilla ice cream and the other a gooey brown mass. He plunged his finger into the latter, then licked it. Butter and cinnamon and brown sugar, still warm. His eyes rolled up as he moaned.

Goddammit, Joel.

With his non-sticky hand, he fished a pair of reading glasses out of the pen and notepaper drawer, then opened Joel's card:

Laissez les bons temps br?ler!

With a heavy sigh, Daniel went back to the table and sat down before the pathetic remnants of their romantic meal—sputtering candles, unbroken bread, empty tablet screen. He forked another piece of ravioli and brushed it against the side of his bowl to wipe off the red sauce, for which his acid reducer seemed to be no match.

Bananas, on the other hand, were very low in acid. As was rum—compared to wine, at least. And after this dinner, when his dreams of being with Joel had to go back on a shelf for safekeeping, he deserved to go straight to dessert.

So he blew out the candles and opened the bottle of rum.

At the stove, he poured the sugary sauce into his remaining clean pan, then turned on the gas burner. As the mixture bubbled, he sliced the banana and tossed in the pieces.

Why had he knee-jerk rejected Mendel's Law, when it explained so much in his own life? He and Vanessa had fallen on one side of that equation, and he and Corey on the other.

He and Joel were ideal, as much as humans could be. Neither too hot nor too cold, his relationship with Joel was the Baby Bear's just-right porridge that Daniel had sought his whole life. The porridge he'd tasted only twice, and all too briefly.

But what if he wasn't Joel's Baby-Bear porridge?

Daniel picked up the bottle of rum. One swig for him, one for the pan. Another swig for him, another for—well, for him.

He should formulate an Evans Law of Love. Maybe Follow your gut and never learn from your mistakes.

He tilted the skillet until the blue gas flame caught the alcohol fumes and lit the whole bubbly mass in an angry red fire.

Letting the good times burn, as instructed.