Epilogue

Diego

Two years later...

THE STOREFRONT IS nondescript. It could be a convenience store. It could be a hotel. The windows offer a view of a sedate foyer where a single employee in black mills around aimlessly. I check my phone, but it claims this is the place.

What the hell have you dragged me into this time, Avery?

I stuff my phone in my back pocket and creep into the shop. Wood and vanilla wraps around me, a warmth that chases away the gray drizzle awaiting me outside on London's streets. I had to take the tube after work at a university across town to get here. In all my and Avery's two years here, I haven't yet ventured to this part of the sprawling city, and I feel the way I did when we first arrived two years ago: Completely lost and tremendously overwhelmed.

A lot has changed in those years. I found teaching work in gender studies, and I even get to continue doing research as part of my job. Avery is finishing up their degree, but when they do, we're thinking of staying here. We've come to love London. We've settled into a cute apartment near Avery's university, met a circle of friends in and outside of academia, and carved out a life for ourselves. Even the distance from our families has become manageable. I call home once a week and fly back whenever there's a break from classes.

But something that has never changed in all that time is Avery's propensity for dragging me off on some new adventure I never could have fathomed.

Today, it's this strange little shop in a strange corner of town.

"Hello, sir," the only employee says when I enter. "Do you need help finding something?"

She gestures around the room, which is empty of any apparent product. There's shelves bearing dishware and a desk that might be for the staff. That's it.

"No," I say. "I have a reservation, I think."

"Ah," she brightens as though I've uttered a magic password. "Last name?"

"It would be under Aaron."

She finds Avery's reservation on a program on her tablet, then motions for me to follow her. She takes me down a staircase set to the side of the room. At the bottom, a door awaits us. She actually pauses to knock on it before pushing it open and leading me inside. I'm either about to get murdered or step into Narnia.

We enter a room that's all dark, stained wood. Small tables sit spaced out in the center of the room. The same shelves as upstairs line the walls, these bearing even more elegant dishware, glasses in various sizes, clear teapots with flowers blooming inside them. There's also tins, and I can guess from the fragrance of earth and grass and vanilla and jasmine flowers what they contain.

So, Narnia, I suppose.

Avery stands up from a chair and rushes to greet me.

"You made it," they say. "I was worried you'd be late."

They're as handsome as ever in slacks and vest, a purple tie lying down their chest. They've pulled their dark hair back into its customary ponytail. Gloss shines on their lips, and I nearly bend down to taste which flavor they've selected today before I remember the employee who escorted me down here.

"Please take a seat," she says. "Your server will be with you in a moment."

Avery all but drags me to one of the tables. There's nothing on it right now, but after only a few minutes a man dressed like a waiter comes out and sets several palm-sized clear glasses on it. Each one contains a different liquid, from one like pale spun gold to amber to a rosy brown. The aroma strikes me immediately, tender jasmine that adds the faintest floral perfume to the air.

"As you requested," the waiter says, "this is a selection of our jasmine teas for you to enjoy today. The jasmine mandarin is a white tea base that contains fragile leaves picked at dawn to perfectly perfume the tea, while the jasmine chung feng is a green tea base with a delicate jasmine scent. The bright yellow tea is our bohemian jasmine blend with jasmine and vanilla. You might also try the jasmine white and the jasmine mist, both white teas. Please enjoy."

The waiter bows a little and backs away, leaving Avery and I alone with our flight of tea.

"All this for tea," I say.

"Tea is very important," Avery says.

"So I see. You dressed up."

"Well, I can't give you the true Boyfriend Café experience otherwise, now can I?"

They've been threatening to show me their Boyfriend Café for years now, and I've always laughed it off. It seems Avery wasn't joking, however. They choose a tea and take a sip, then pass a pale brew to me. I sip tentatively, only to discover that it's perfectly brewed. Just the right temperature. Light and sweet but not too sweet. And the scent of jasmine that hit my nose as I tipped the cup back added a whole extra dimension of flavor .

"This is incredible," I say.

Avery beams. "I know. It's supposed to be the best. I guess I see why."

"It must be expensive though." Everything in London is expensive, and Avery's still in school.

They shrug. "It is, but it's okay. We can treat ourselves one time. I promise."

"We're going to have instant noodles to eat for the rest of the month."

"It's worth it for this. Trust me. Try this one."

They pass me another tea, and I sip it. Somehow, it's completely different from the first, despite the white tea and jasmine being exactly the same. The difference is so subtle I can feel it more than I can name it.

"You're going to ruin all normal tea for me forever," I say. "This is like having some of that Swiss chocolate and then going home to your parents' place around the holidays and being handed a Hershey's bar."

Avery laughs. "They think we're such snobs for that."

"It's not our fault. They'd understand if they tried it. Didn't you send them those chocolates we got for them?"

"I did," Avery says. "My mother insists there's no difference. I think my dad is coming around though."

We try more of the teas and chat about nothing and by the end I think I understand the whole Boyfriend Café thing. Avery always described the café as a place for students to relax for a while, to forget about their classes and their roommates and their petty college drama and kick back. By the time we're through the flight of jasmine teas, I understand.

The waiter re-emerges like he was watching us drink and anticipating the exact moment when we'd finish. He takes away the empty cups, but after only a couple minutes, he reappears. I assume he's about to ask us very, very politely and Britishly to get the hell out, but he's wheeling a cart toward us. He stops it before our table, and places two clean glasses before us. Into these, he sets metal steepers, each with a heart shaped wad of tea inside.

"For your final tea," he says, "we offer the sweetheart tea, a green tea bud hand-shaped into the form of a heart."

The last item on his tray is a steaming hot kettle. As he pours the water inside it into our cups, the little tea buds unfurl, destroying the heart shape but opening up into their full bloom. After two minutes (which the waiter apparently counts out in his head), he removes the steepers, entreats us to enjoy our tea, and wheels the whole contraption away.

"Did you know about this part?" I say.

"I might have," Avery admits, smiling around the rim of their cup.

It had to cost extra on top of what is surely already an exorbitant tea experience, but I'm not about to complain. It was beautiful, and it tastes every bit as good as it looks. This time around, I'll absorb the hit to our finances and keep my mouth shut.

Besides, it clearly makes Avery happy. We've shared a lot of adventures in the four years since we met, but Avery has always seemed sad that I didn't experience their café back at C U of M. They still see many of the folks who worked at the café. Gabriel, their brother, and Trent are around for every holiday, of course. But I've also come to know Rhett and Albert and Mal, even the newer guys, the ones who were there when Avery was in charge, Julian, Cameron, Henry and manager Mia. They're quite a crew, especially with all their partners and friends in tow. Albert's annual New Year's party in Brooklyn is starting to burst the seams on his and David's home. So it's genuinely nice to experience an approximation of what they all built together while they were at Montridge, that silly café that grew to become so much more as the people behind it poured their love and care into every cup of tea they served.

"Thank you for doing this," I say. "I wish I could have experienced the real thing."

"Who knows?" Avery says. "Maybe someday you can. The café is still going strong. Jack says there's someone coming by several times a week to pick up baked goods. As long as someone at Montridge cares enough, the Boyfriend Café will never truly die. It'll just keep getting passed down, like a family heirloom. "

"That's one strange family heirloom."

"It is," Avery says. "But that's the best part about it. This is our family and our family heirloom. And I have a feeling it's going to stay that way for a long, long time."

We might be sitting across an entire ocean from Montridge and the university and the café, but I like the sound of that. I like feeling that tether back to home. It reminds me that no matter how far Avery and I travel, no matter what new adventures we find, there will always be something worth going back to.

"I don't think I can drink another drop," Avery says.

"Me neither. My bladder is about to explode."

We hit the bathroom before leaving the shop. London's trademark gray drizzle tickles our cheeks as we make for the tube that will take us home. Well, to one of our homes. We haven't quite decided what "home" home is going to be yet. There's a whole big world out there to see, and we aren't sure where our research and our curiosity is going to take us in the end.

Maybe home is here, the old, narrow, winding streets and gray drizzle. Maybe it's New Jersey, where Avery's parents live. Maybe it's my small town in Wisconsin with its fudge and its single lonely gay bar. Maybe it's somewhere else entirely.

Maybe it's wherever Avery is.

Whatever the answer is, I kind of can't wait to find out.