Chapter Nine

chapter nine

THE NEXT MORNING, I FEEL KIND OF CRUSTED OVER. MY SKIN FEELSdry, my eyes thick. I drink some water and take my temperature. No fever. I’ll have Dad do some blood work. I’m sure I have something. That would explain how I feel this morning, and how I felt last night. Why I cried in the shower, too. Physiological effects of viruses and infections can easily cause extreme emotional shifts. Your body controls your mind, just like your mind controls your body. Emotional trauma can make you shiver, but shivering from a fever can be emotionally taxing.

Certainly I wasn’t crying because of rejection. I think sex with Miles would be fun, but if he wasn’t feeling it, that’s fine. His loss, really. Maybe I felt a little upset because of our tiff, but it’s not like we haven’t traded worse barbs. I’m sure everything will be normal by tomorrow.

Downstairs, Dad has made superfood spelt-and-blueberry pancakes, which are extremely good. I have several before I ask him to test my blood, which he happily does.

“I thought we could decorate for the holidays today,” he says as my blood fills the little tube. “Maybe go pick out a tree?”

“That sounds nice,” I say. And it does. Picking out the tree, weirdly, was always Mom’s favorite part. There’s a tree farm about an hour away and we’d drive up and spend hours just looking them over, but a few years after she died, I found a tree rental place, where they give you a tree in a pot, and you return it after, and they plant it back in the ground. Much more eco-friendly, so we changed to that. Plus it was nice going to a different tree farm. At the old one, I could always feel Mom’s absence.

So I shower and dress while he mails my blood sample in to the lab, but the truth is, I’m feeling a lot better today. Maybe it really was the tequila. I really am happy for Miles. A little offended he turned me down for some sexy fun, but if he’s demi, then it’s just not for him, and it’s not about me, really, so it’s all fine. Still, I turn over what he said yesterday and wonder if maybe my pushing the idea of us having no-strings sex when he was clearly declining offended him. In which case a simple apology will settle it. I’m sure everything will go back to normal soon.

We drive out to the tree farm and walk up and down the aisles of potted firs and spruces, most a little taller than me, in huge pots. The pot can be changed, but since coming here, Dad and I like to make a game of picking the perfect combination, ready-made.

“I like the tree,” Dad says, examining a fir. “Looks robust. But the pot…” He looks down. “A little sad, don’t you think?”

“Very.” I nod. “How about this one? The pot is blue, which is a nice nod to my Jewish side.”

“No, no, look at this empty patch.”

It takes us forty minutes before we decide on a healthy-looking pine in a pretty white pot. Then another forty minutes to maneuver it into the car—you can’t just strap it to the roof when it’s got a heavy pot that needs to be on a surface. So we put it on the floor in the back, the top of it reaching out through the sunroof, and drive back slowly so the tip doesn’t break off. At home, we now have to get it out of the car, which for some reason is much harder than getting it in, and bring it to the living room. Once we’ve put it down, I collapse onto the sofa, and Dad into an armchair, both of us catching our breath.

“I swear the trees get bigger every year,” Dad says. “Or the pots get heavier.”

“They might. Maybe we should start taking pot weight into account.”

“At least we’re having a good meal tonight. Jasmine and Priyanka invited us over.”

I frown.

“What?” Dad asks. “I assumed it was all right. You want to see them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I just was thinking of spending the night doing nothing. But this is much better.”

Dad laughs. “I should think so.”

I laugh with him. Everything will be fine with Miles, and I really do want to see Priyanka and Jasmine.

After a brief lunch of reheated healthy tacos (they weren’t too bad, actually) and plenty of green tea, we start decorating. There are ornaments of all kinds for the tree—Jewish ones, like dreidels, and plenty of medical ones, even a financial manager one: a money clip holding mistletoe. And then there are the more personal ones; stuff my dad’s family has passed down forever, like the Woodhouse family crest from England, and photos of my grandparents. And there are classic ornaments—glass balls, twinkling stars. Finally, there are the ones I made as a child… Popsicle sticks with googly eyes. Dad loves those. He picks up a Popsicle-stick Star of David covered in blue-and-silver glitter.

“When did I make that?” I ask, hanging a more traditional white orb on a branch.

“Oh, your mother made this,” Dad says, smiling at it.

“What?” I look back at the ornament. It definitely looks like it was made by a child.

“When we first moved in together, an apartment down in LA. She’d never had a Christmas tree before; she felt”—he tilts his head—“guilty. But excited. Which made her feel more guilty. So she said if she was going to have a Christmas tree—and I offered not to, but she insisted—but if she was going to have one, then some of the ornaments had to be Jewish. So she wasn’t… cheating, I guess.”

“So she made that?” I ask, walking closer and taking the glitter star from him. “How old was she?”

“Oh… we moved in after college, so twenty-two?”

“Twenty-two…” I knew my parents met in college, but for some reason I had assumed they didn’t really become a thing until they were done with grad school. Priyanka always says medical school was so busy that she and my mom barely had time for a social life. And they didn’t get married until Mom was thirty-three. “Wait, so when did you start dating?”

“Um… we were nineteen. Your mother might have been eighteen—about your age.”

“My age?” I almost drop the ornament. I guess this shouldn’t really be surprising. I’ve seen photos, and they always looked young together, but I guess… I just thought that was because Dad looks so old now.

“What?” Dad laughs. “Just realizing that?”

“I guess…,” I say, hanging the ornament on the front center of the tree. “But then… how did you know? I mean, Mom was a doctor, she knew your brains weren’t done developing. You weren’t old enough to be yourselves yet, much less know who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.”

Dad shakes his head and brings over an ornament I remember making with Mom, a Star of David but painted green and decorated with red balls of glitter, like a wreath.

“We weren’t thinking about that, Emmett,” he says. “We were in love. We weren’t thinking about it ending. Love doesn’t make you imagine an ending.”

“But what if it ended…” I trail off. It did end. Terribly. “Knowing what you know now,” I say, the room very quiet, “would you still…?”

Dad turns to look at me, shocked, and blinks away tears before turning back to the tree and hanging the wreath star next to Mom’s ornament. Then he takes both my shoulders in his hands and looks me in the eye.

“In a heartbeat,” he says. “Without hesitation. Your mom and I had years together. Amazing years. I would never give those up.”

“Even if it meant you wouldn’t have the pain of…”

Dad scoffs, shakes his head. “Pain. What’s pain next to love?”

“But love ends,” I say.

“No,” Dad says, dropping his hands. “It doesn’t. It changes. But if you think for a moment that I don’t still love your mother and she doesn’t still love me…” He turns back to the box and pulls out a little framed photo ornament—Mom holding baby me. “Love changes. And sometimes there’s pain. A bad breakup means maybe you won’t see someone again, or that you’ll hate them, too. But past you—he loved them. And that love made him better. Even if maybe it turned sour or… died.” He says the last word in a whisper, then hangs the ornament on the tree. “Flowers die, but that doesn’t make them less beautiful,” he tells me, then turns around, a sad smile on his face. “Come on, no need to be so morbid today. We’re decorating a tree, for Christ’s sake.” He laughs. “Literally, for Christ’s sake.”

I laugh, too, even though it’s not a great joke, and I take out another ornament, a little snowman I drew on a shell. Dad is wrong, of course. He needs to tell himself it was worth it, but the pain he’s in, the pain he feels all the time… it can’t have been worth it. Can it?

I hang up the shell and look at the photo of Mom. Maybe Mom was worth it. But surely no one else could be.

That night, we bring a bouquet from the garden and a bottle of wine over to Miles, Priyanka, and Jasmine’s place. Even outside the door, it smells amazing; garlic, spices, oil, and butter. I realize how much I’ve missed eating food for pleasure and not to fight free radicals. I mean, I make myself quick simple meals I like, and Dad’s healthy meals range from cardboard to perfectly fine, but from the smell alone I know that this is culinary extravagance. Miles opens the door, and I can tell immediately his smile is forced.

“Hey,” he says. “Come on in.”

I hand him the wine, and he nods but won’t meet my eyes. I really don’t see what he has to remain so annoyed about. If I can manage his rejection, surely he can understand if I was offended. But I guess that’s classic Miles: I’ve somehow lowered myself in his eyes, either through my drunkenness or my offer of sex or both, and now he can’t even deign to look at me. Well, fine. I’m not here for him anyway.

“Emmett!” Priyanka calls out when she sees me. Their house is much more open than ours, with a huge central kitchen, with a skylight over it, perfect for filming, while the rest of the house circles it—living room on one side, dining on the other, and on each side a hallway to a bathroom and a bedroom. You can see practically anywhere in the house from anywhere else, although it’s large enough that you can’t see well. And they’ve decorated it beautifully, with sapphire tile in the kitchen, and greens and gold everywhere else. A glass orb chandelier hangs over the dining room table, and the sofas are tan leather. I’ve always loved the style here. It feels like camping, somehow. Or glamping, I suppose, as there are no bugs, there’s indoor plumbing, and it’s actually enjoyable.

Priyanka runs over and gives me a hug, and then hugs Dad, too. Jasmine is behind the stove, cooking, and Knight is here as well, filming her as she cooks.

“Should we not talk?” I whisper to Priyanka, nodding at Knight.

“Oh no, they just want the visuals. Then, if you’re all right with it, maybe some photos for the cookbook?”

“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t dress up or anything.”

“No, no,” Knight says, hearing us. “Just casual eating things. Family photos. We don’t want anything too polished.” They look up from the camera to me. “Besides, you look great.”

I smile. “Thank you, so do you.” They do. Their leather jacket is slung over a dining room chair, and they’re in a gray tank top that shows off their excellently muscled arms, and a bit of hair on the sliver of skin above their waist.

The corner of their mouth turns up as they go back to filming Jasmine.

“Well, I didn’t know this was just so you could use us in your book,” Dad says, teasing.

“Never,” Priyanka says. “Just multitasking.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Apparently she’s a month behind on the book.”

“I can hear that!” Jasmine shouts. “And I was doing the work of two mothers for a year! Being only a month behind is good.”

Priyanka grins. “Yes, and thank you for that, sweetie.”

“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” Jasmine quickly adds. “You were doing much more important work than a cookbook, and I wanted you to be doing it… just saying I didn’t prepare as much as I should have.” As she says this, she grabs a pair of spice jars without looking and shakes them into the pan she’s stirring, and she does it artfully, making long powdery lines of burgundy and yellow in the air before they fall into the pan.

Priyanka laughs. “That’s you—unprepared.” She goes back over to Jasmine and kisses her squarely on the lips, squeezing her around the waist. Jasmine grabs another spice but this time as she’s about to add it to the pan, Priyanka squeezes her again and her hand holding the spice shakes too much, sending the yellow powder up into the air and then falling down on them like rain. Jasmine bursts out laughing. “Now we taste like curry,” she says.

“Don’t care,” Priyanka says, kissing her again.

“Well, now I wish I were recording for sound,” Knight says.

“Don’t put that up,” Jasmine says to them, shaking her head. “Some things are just for us. Now this needs to sit for a few minutes.…” She puts a lid over the pan. “So let me go make sure I’m not overly spiced for the photos. Miles, Emmett, can you set the table?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Actually, Miles can handle that with Henry,” Priyanka says. “Emmett, you come help me find a nonalcoholic drink for you two.…”

“Okay,” I say, following her downstairs to their wine cellar. It’s not as large as upstairs, but it’s beautifully laid out. Jasmine knows her wines as well as she does her food.

“So,” Priyanka says, looking at the shelves. “How are you?”

“What?” I ask, feeling like the question is pointed. And she brought me down here where no one can hear us. I hope Miles didn’t say anything about last night. “I’m fine.”

“It’s just… your dad said something about trying to take your blood?”

“Oh.” I laugh with relief. “Yes, he tries that. He’s always tried that. Well… since Mom died.” I look at the shelf devoted to nonalcoholic wines and liquors. Not root beer or anything, but fancy crafted bottles of special brews.

“I knew he got his nursing degree…,” Priyanka says. “But… taking your blood without your consent isn’t okay, Emmett. You know that, right?”

“Oh.” I turn around, quickly shaking my head. “No, no, Pri, he would never. He asks a lot, but I only let him when I’m actually feeling sick. It reassures him, and it reassures me, because all he does is send it out to a lab, and I know they’re not going to see things in it that aren’t there, right?”

She nods. “Right. Well… okay. Still… I feel like since I’ve been gone, he’s gotten worse. Maybe he should be seeing a psychologist? I can… try to recommend that, if you want.”

I laugh. “It probably couldn’t hurt… but it’s been like this since Mom died. I mean, it’s a reaction to Mom, right, so—”

“Well,” she interrupts, pulling out a bottle of T. Totalle and showing it to me, “that wasn’t your mom’s death. I mean… you remember, he was like this before, too. I think it’s why he started dating your mom—she was premed and he was a hypochondriac. Sorry, that makes it sound cheap. They loved each other wildly. But she could always calm him down when he was freaking out. And I think after she died it came back, but I was there, and I guess I didn’t think about that when I left, so it just feels like—”

“Whoa,” I say. “Stop. No. This isn’t your fault, and he’s not that bad, and I can manage him.” I take a deep breath and put back the T. Totalle and grab a bottle of Nectaryn instead. “I think this is the one Jasmine said works best with spice, and it smelled like spice up there.” I turn the bottle around, showing her, but she keeps looking at me, not it. “Maybe a psychologist wouldn’t be the worst thing. He never went to one after she died, said he didn’t want to take the time away from me. I thought all his health worries were about Mom… and now me about to go to college…”

“Maybe that’s making it worse. But it’s always been there.… He just needs someone to keep him in check, I think. To remind him that he’s being too much, instead of letting him take your blood when you feel sick.”

“I don’t mind it.”

“Well… I’ll talk to him later. This isn’t your job. But thanks for talking to me.” She squeezes my shoulder.

“What were they like, together, when they were younger?” I ask. “Mom kept him sane?”

“Oh.” She smiles, her eyes miles away. “They were so funny together. They would make each other laugh all the time, and it was infectious—your dad would tell a joke and your mom would laugh and then she’d repeat it and we’d all laugh and then she’d tell a joke… like watching the best kind of romantic comedy.”

I nod. “Did things ever fall on them?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I shake my head. “This good?” I hold out the bottle. “I smelled a lot of garlic and I think this is the one Jasmine always grabs for garlicky stuff.”

“Good call.” She squeezes my arm again, and we start upstairs. “Hey, did Miles talk to you last night?”

I freeze, then remember. “About being queer? Yeah.”

“Isn’t it great?” she says, smiling at me in a weird way. “He’s family now! I mean, obviously, he’s my son, he was always family. But now capital F.”

“What?” I ask.

She laughs as we come back out into the kitchen. “It’s old slang. Older than me. How queer people talk about each other. Family.”

“I hope you were already talking about me as family,” Miles says from the kitchen. “I think being the son of lesbians means I was part of the community even if I wasn’t queer.”

“Of course it does, baby,” Priyanka says, kissing him on the forehead. “But I don’t deny being thrilled you’re even queerer than that.”

He laughs, then looks at me and narrows his eyes. “What were you two talking about down there?”

“Nothing,” Priyanka says quickly, and Jasmine reappears, spice-free.

“You didn’t change,” she says to Priyanka, dusting her off. “We want to look casual in the photos, not crusted.”

“I’m going to set up some lights around the dining room,” Knight says. “We want casual but… visible. Okay?”

“You’re the photography major,” Jasmine says.

“And public relations,” Knight adds quickly, winking at me. I feel myself grin widely and hear Miles’s exasperated sigh.

“All right, go sit down,” Jasmine says. “I’m going to bring this over.” She opens the lid on the pan and then on a nearby pot and starts moving things from one to the other, throwing in other things as she mixes. I can’t keep track, it’s a whir of color and smell. On TV, she goes slower, and explains every move she makes, but at home, you can see she’s cooking for herself, the way her eyes focus in on every moment, and the small way she smiles as certain sounds happen—a sizzle, a splash. It’s like she’s hearing poetry in a language no one else understands. Or perhaps writing it.

We go sit down at the table and Knight starts taking photos. They have a camera, not just their phone, for this. “Don’t look at me,” they say when we turn. Jasmine comes over last and starts dishing out the meal.

“Okay,” she says. “So this is a new one. I’ve made it for myself a few times, but we’re testing it. It’s like a chili, but the flavors are a mix from Priyanka’s ancestral home in southern India and my home state of Georgia, and we’re serving it with very garlicky corn bread.” She starts dishing out food onto our plates and my mouth starts to water. The chili is in bowls and topped with a little sour cream and it tastes almost like a biryani, but it eats like a chili—filling and thick, and the spice is like both of them—three kinds of fire. Maybe four. I’m grateful for the corn bread, which isn’t just sweet and filled with sweet corn flavor but also extravagantly garlicked, crusted with little pieces of browned garlic sticking to it. It helps cut the spice on my tongue but also makes the flavors in the chili pop out more—paprika, cumin, tenderly roasted beef.

“This is magnificent,” I say. “Exquisite.”

“It came out perfect, sweetie,” Priyanka adds.

“Yeah, Mom.”

“Spices are good for your immune system,” Dad says.

“And they taste good,” I say, looking at Priyanka, who smiles, but a little sadly. “Don’t forget that part, Dad.”

“Yeah!” Dad says. “Sorry. It tastes amazing, Jas.”

“You should eat, too,” I tell Knight. I hand them a piece of the bread. “This bread is like putting God in your mouth.”

Knight smirks at me but takes the bread. Their eyes close with pleasure as they bite into it. “Okay, this needs to go in the book, Jas.”

“Yeah,” I second. “Wait, is that what you’re testing? If it goes in the book?”

“I have most of it figured out, but I thought maybe a few new things…” Jasmine smiles. “You all like it, though?”

“I mean, I haven’t tried the chili yet,” Knight says.

Jasmine laughs and fills a bowl for them.

“It should, Mom.”

“Absolutely,” Priyanka says.

“Henry?” Jasmine asks, looking over at Dad, who is dipping his bread in his nearly empty bowl.

“What?” he asks.

“Is this good enough for a cookbook?” Jasmine asks.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he says. “You know what it reminds me of? Remember when you and Julie were at the sorority, Pri? And there was that pizza place down the street.”

Priyanka beams. “Yes. With the overly fluffy garlic bread. That’s what we called it. Overly fluffy garlic bread.”

“Well, I think we have a name for this bread, then,” Jasmine says. “Overly Fluffy Garlic Corn Bread.”

“The chili is amazing, too,” Knight says, putting their bowl down and taking another photo.

“I think you have a hit, sweetie,” Priyanka says, kissing Jasmine on the forehead.

“Cute,” Knight says, snapping a photo. “How long have you two been together anyway? I don’t think I know that story.”

“Twenty years,” Priyanka says quickly. “Met when I was still a resident. She was a sous-chef… where was it?”

“Rhapsody. All the Michelin stars. Chef was a tyrant, though.”

“I remember. You had practically chopped your finger off and the whole time you were saying you needed to get back to the kitchen.”

“Still have the scar,” Jasmine says, showing us her hand. A scar stretches around her left index finger like a ring. “It’s my favorite.” She gasps. “I should do something with that. A scar… scars…” She stands up and goes to the kitchen, where she has a bunch of notebooks, and starts jotting things down. We all watch and after a moment, she looks up, grinning.

“All right,” she says. “Technically, there is a pie. Peach, not a new recipe or anything. But if you’re willing to give me”—she tilts her head—“a little over an hour, we can have something never before tasted.”

“I always love an experiment,” I say.

“I’m game,” Priyanka says.

“I was hoping to get some dessert photos,” Knight says, and glances at their phone.

“I’m paying you overtime. You have a party or something to go to?” Jasmine asks, already taking out flour and sugar.

Knight looks like they’re deciding, then shakes their head. “Nah. I’ll stay.”

“Great,” Jasmine says. “Everyone, have a drink, go outside, look at the stars, I’ll try to get this ready as fast as I can.”

I look over at Miles, who is stealing another piece of bread. “Want to go outside?” I ask him. “It’s nice out.”

“That’s okay,” he says without looking at me.

“I’ll go outside with you,” Knight says. “I need to go over some of these and it’ll be easier without any glare.” They hold up their camera. “You can tell me if you don’t look good enough in any, and I’ll delete them.”

“Deal,” I say. I could also arrange for the worst ones of Miles to be saved, I think, but… no, that wouldn’t be nice. Even if Miles is being even worse than usual right now.

We go out the back door onto the deck. There’s a pool out back, and the smells of spices and sugar fade into grass and chlorine. Knight walks out onto the lawn, and I follow, looking up at the stars, hands in my pockets. I start thinking about what Priyanka said, about my dad. A psychologist is an excellent idea. I hope she convinces him.

“You ever see a psychologist?” I ask Knight.

They laugh, low and sexy. “Oh yeah. Since I was fifteen. Why?”

“Priyanka thinks my father might need one, and I’m inclined to agree.”

“He doesn’t have one?”

I shake my head.

“Do you?”

I shake my head again.

They let out a low whistle. Shocked? Impressed?

“What?” I ask.

“Just… No, it’s not my place. You see a shrink as long as I have, you sort of want everyone to see one, you know? I love it, just a chance to unpack, really think in a way I don’t have time for, and with someone who makes me. But what you and your dad need—I couldn’t say.”

“But you think he does? That I do?”

“I think… Look, I only know what I’ve heard. But I think watching your wife or mom waste away for a year and then die, and you being so young… yeah. A shrink would be good for both of you.” Up close, and without Jasmine cooking around us for once, I notice they have a smell—cologne or deodorant maybe, like oranges, bright and a little bitter. “But like I said, I’m going to think that about everyone.”

“Well, Priyanka is going to try to convince him. I hadn’t thought about me.…” I look at the stars. “I mean, I don’t think I need one.”

They laugh again. “No?”

I look at them, prepared to glare, but they don’t seem to be laughing at me, exactly. “I just… I think I’m coping well. As well as I can, anyway. And I don’t remember the wasting away, not really.” I think of Mom, looking like skin and bones, bald, deep circles under her eyes, lying in bed, me snuggled in her arm reading to her. I see it’s a sad memory, but it feels warm. Happy. Which is what makes it sad, too, but not in the way Knight might think.

I shake my head. “I think the only reason I’d need one is so I don’t—” I stop myself. I was about to say something cruel.

“What?” they ask. They step closer, and the scent of orange grows stronger, warmer.

“I just…” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Promise not to tell?”

“I’ll be your shrink training wheels, won’t tell a soul,” they say.

“I’m afraid of becoming my father.”

They chuckle. “That’s everyone’s fear.”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m sorry, I understand what you’re saying, but everyone is afraid they’ll turn out like their parents.” They put their hand on my shoulder and squeeze.

“But it’s different with me. I mean… his reacting badly to what happened. To Mom… leaving. I can’t fall apart like that.”

They look at me, confused—and for a moment, I think, pitying—and I shrug off their hand. “Emmett, if your wife dies… if your mom dies… you’re allowed to fall apart. You should fall apart.”

I nod. They’re right, of course. But they’re also not quite understanding what I mean. “But I don’t want to,” I say.

“Well, that seems like something to talk to a real shrink about. But I’d say it’s normal not to want pain, but also you gotta remember, pain is unavoidable. But what do I know?” They step away and look up at the stars; then they take their camera, which has been slung around their neck, and hold it up. “Wanna help me pick your best side?”

“Are you saying I have a worse side?” I ask, stepping closer.

They laugh. “Not you. You’re perfect.”

“I’m glad you finally admitted it,” I say, now close enough to smell the orange again. We look over the photos, picking out really good ones and deleting really bad ones. We look really happy together. A family.

“Are you and Miles fighting?” they ask, after we’ve gone over several dozen photos, moving to a bench near the pool. “He’s not meeting your eyes in any of these. Normally he’s always looking over at you.”

I sigh and roll my eyes. “Not fighting. I don’t think so. I said something stupid last night. You know he came out, right?”

Knight nods. “What, you hit on him?”

I don’t say anything and they laugh again.

“I was drunk,” I say quickly. “And I was just offering to… show him the ropes. Which… all right, he did say he thought he was demisexual, and so maybe my pushing that offer was a little disrespectful. But he rejected me, and I’m fine with it, so I don’t see the problem.”

“Maybe just awkwardness,” Knight says. “I mean your best friend says they wanna screw, that’s gotta change the dynamic, right?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t call myself his best friend,” I correct. “But no, I don’t think that’s true. Sex and friendship can go hand in hand, same as sex and romance, or even sex and anonymity. Or do you only sleep with those lucky enough to win your heart?”

They laugh, loudly this time. “Nah, you’re right. I screw my friends. But Miles is new to this, Emmett. And not every queer person is like us. Some really do want that romance. I mean, I want romance sometimes. When I date someone, and we’re monogamous, then yeah, it’s romance. Screwing friends is… different. And even then, usually we have to work out what our friendship is with the sex, what it means. We don’t just say ‘Now we’re friends who have sex’ and hop into bed, and then go ‘And now we’re friends who do not have sex’ later. It’s not just tidy little labels you switch out, each with a set of rules. You have to negotiate it. Otherwise it gets messy. Hell, it usually does anyway.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. I think it can stay neat if you’re neat enough.”

“Maybe it doesn’t get messy for you, then.” They raise an eyebrow. “Lucky you.” They lean back and look up at the sky, the smell of orange growing stronger. “Although, you know, I like the mess. Well… not like. But, y’know, we get to make these relationships up. We’re queer. Straight people are basically told from birth the kind of relationships they’re supposed to have—straight guys are told they can’t be emotional with their friends, and they have to love their wives but joke about what a pain they are, too. Women are supposed to love but also hate their female friends, and love but also hate their husbands. They’re trained to be like that. A lot of them are—it takes work to break out. All we have to do is come out. Then we shatter all those ideas, and we get to make everything up—we’re friends, but we love each other and have sex, but it’s not romantic, or maybe we used to have sex, but we don’t, or he’s my ex and he’s my closest friend in the world… it’s messy, but it’s ours.” They shrug. “Straight people can get there, too, of course, but… a lot don’t. We get to make it up the moment we come out and shatter all those ideas we’re taught about relationships. If we want, I mean. No offense to the guys who meet and get married and live a happy monogamous life. As long as it’s their decision and not just trying to be like straight people. Does that make sense? I dunno, I’m rambling here. But the point is… friends can be more than friends. Maybe it’ll be a mess. But then you negotiate your way through that mess. Together. Which makes your friendship stronger.”

We’re sitting arm to arm, and the camera is in their lap. I can feel the heat of their body through their leather jacket.

“You know, we’re friends,” I say slowly.

“Something like that,” they say; their voice is careful. The orange smell seems to grow stronger, juicier.

“Maybe we can negotiate something,” I say.

They’re silent for a moment, and I consider the mortification of being rejected twice in as many days.

“Maybe,” they say. “But how old are you?”

“I’ll be eighteen in March,” I say quickly.

“Aries?”

“Yes. Does that pertain to what we’re discussing?”

They laugh again. “You’re funny. And hot. If you still want to talk about this in March, we can talk about it. But not in front of my boss, who thinks of you as her other son, okay? We’d need to negotiate some boundaries around work-Knight and play-Knight.”

“Completely understood. I look forward to March.”

“If you change your mind before then, I won’t be at all offended.”

“I don’t know why I would,” I say.

We hear the door to the house close with a creak and turn around. Miles is over by the door.

“Mom says dessert is ready,” he calls to us.

“Can you go in ahead?” I whisper to Knight. “I should apologize to him again.”

“Sure thing,” they say, standing up. When they walk away, the smell of orange fades back into chlorine. Miles waits by the door, looking at me impatiently, and I approach slowly, but stop before going inside. It’s just the two of us, and Knight was right, he’s not meeting my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. Apologies are best done politely and to the point. “I was rude last night. We are friends, not just family friends. That was a mean lie because I felt rejected—but my offer was impolite. You’d just explained to me how your attraction works, and how it seemed to be uniquely tied to a connection you had, and I completely ignored that. It was disrespectful, and I apologize.”

He sighs but still won’t look at me. “Emmett, I…” He shakes his head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Really?” I ask.

He looks up and smiles, but it’s small, maybe forced, or a little sad. “Really,” he says. “Can we go have dessert?”

I go inside. Maybe he needs more time, but I’ve done the nice thing, and he knows I’m sorry.

“Okay,” Jasmine is saying as she takes something out of the oven. “Get the camera ready, Knight, because I am unveiling my new hopefully amazing dessert: Finger Cut Blondies.” She puts a tray down on the counter and we all peer around, Knight shooting photos. It smells amazing—like strawberry shortcake and caramel. The tray looks like a sea of red, with crisp beige cookies in big broken chunks on top.

“What I did was I used a caramel shortcake base for the blondie, then layered on a lot of strawberry jam, and topped it with broken ladyfingers. So it looks like that cut I had on my own lady finger, which those lady fingers sewed up.” She smiles at Priyanka.

“Lady fingers,” Priyanka says, smiling, her eyes tearing up. She kisses Jasmine on the lips. “This is amazing.”

“It smells so good,” Dad says.

“It’s dessert,” Priyanka says to Dad, heading him off. “Just enjoy the sweetness.”

“I—” Dad starts.

“Just enjoy the sweetness, Dad,” I repeat.

“I was going to say I will,” Dad says.

Jasmine cuts us each one of the scar blondies and puts it on a plate, and when mine comes I bite into it almost immediately. It’s still hot, and it tastes like strawberries but also caramel and the crisp vanilla of the ladyfingers, all of it melting into something warm and sweet and… home, somehow.

“I’m going to recommend serving them with chocolate chip ice cream,” Jasmine says, nodding as she eats hers. “But I think they came out pretty good.”

Everyone nods and murmurs in agreement, their mouths full, and Jasmine laughs.

“Just goes to show,” she says. “If you remember them right, scars can be sweet.”