Chapter Fourteen
Rosalie
“If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone else?”
Emily’s head pops up from behind the clothing rack she’s browsing. It’s our ritual to go shopping on Thursdays before she works, a small comfort even though we rarely have the money to splurge. “You’ve known me since I was nine,” she chides, eyes bright with thinly veiled excitement. “Do you really have to ask?”
“Even if it might make you think I’m a bad person?”
She flits to my side. “Okay, now you have to tell me.”
I sigh, gathering my courage and trying to find the right words. “Do you remember Theodore? From the bar?”
A slow grin stretches her cheeks. She bounces on her toes once, twice, then smacks my shoulder so hard that my hand shoots up to soothe the sting. “You harlot!” A dozen heads turn to look at us.
Heat floods my cheeks. “It’s not like that,” I insist in a whisper, my eyes darting around to the gawking shoppers.
“O-kay,” she sings, oblivious to the attention— or maybe she just doesn’t care that there are at least seven people still scowling at us. “Poor Henry. That man is inhumanly hot.” She reaches over to grab my wrist. “You should invite him to family dinner. It’s potluck week.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Please?” she whines. “I’m your best friend.” She emphasizes the last two words: capital B, capital F. “I deserve to meet the sorta scary guy you’re interested in.”
“I’m not interested in him.” Emily inhales like she’s going to interject, but I hold up a finger. “I’m not! Plus, I don’t think he’ll want to come. He’s busy with his own stuff, and the guys didn’t exactly welcome him with open arms.”
“I have enough arms for all of us, and they’re always open.” Emily wraps her hands around my bicep and tilts her head back, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Promise you’ll ask him.”
I sigh. “You just want to live out your fantasy of a dramatic dinner party.” She pushes out her lower lip and flutters her eyelashes. “Fine! Fine, I’ll ask him.”
Her pout shifts into a satisfied smirk at the victory. She pulls me into a skip. “I’m making tater tot casserole.”
My answering laugh is sudden and loud, earning more glares. “If I tell him that, he definitely won’t come.”
I meet Theodore for lunch two days later at a taqueria near my work, a place that I used to frequent with Mike and Emily when we were too awake to go home but too drunk to keep walking. It’s open late, and the food is cheap. I’ve never been here during the day.
The restaurant is a homely, family-owned place with white square tables and folding chairs, checkered floors, and a buzzing fridge filled with drinks in glass bottles. Most of the other patrons take their food to-go, gathering around the counter and making small talk with the middle-aged woman behind the register. Theodore orders in perfect Spanish.
"How many languages do you speak?" I ask when we settle into a peeling booth pressed against the back wall.
"Fluently? Just the three." He shakes his head like he's confessing. "But my Mandarin is passable, and Az taught me a fair bit of Arabic. I took to studying Latin recently."
"Latin," I repeat, incredulous. "Are you trying to impress me?"
He shrugs. "Are you impressed?"
"Hm." I cross my arms and rest them on the table. "I haven't decided yet."
"I can juggle, too."
"Oh, can you."
He leans in and whispers, "I'm an adequate pianist."
"So are half of the people uptown."
"I've been told I'm an excellent cook. Trained by the best."
I make a show of nodding. "Alright. You got me. If it's not impressive, it certainly is convenient…"
He beams when I tell him about the conversation with Emily, no doubt picking the memory from my mind and turning over details that I don’t readily share. “It could be fun,” he says, “but what is a potluck?”
I blink at him. It’s easy to forget that he lives in a different world than I do, that he doesn’t technically live at all. “It’s like…” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “It’s a community dinner. Everyone cooks something so nobody has to cook.”
“That sounds counterintuitive.”
The edges of my lips twitch upwards. “I guess it is.” I pick a fallen bit of barbacoa from his plate and pop it into my mouth. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. My friends can be…" Inconsiderate. Rude. Protective. "Blunt."
"Do you want me there?" he asks.
"You're going to pick a fight with Henry."
"I don't pick fights."
The flat look I give him in response draws a laugh from him.
"I'm house-trained, I swear it. I'll be a proper courtly guest. Now, if a fight picks me…"
"Henry's not like that."
He pushes forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Oh? Do tell, Rosalie. What is Henry like?"
I mirror his posture, fighting a smile and losing terribly. "You're being a dick."
"Timid?"
"Kind."
"Polite," he counters.
"Thoughtful."
With every word, we've surged closer to each other, so much that we share breath when he asks, "Is he?"
"I suppose you'd know," I say. His eyes flash aqua, light more often than not lately. I've seen him nearly every day this week. Our trysts are no longer confined to my working hours. He knows the city well, leading me to restaurants I'd have never tried or parks that I wasn't aware existed. I share my own spots with him, too. Once, I suggested a hike outside of the city to watch the sunrise, but he only offered a disinterested, if you'd like, so our pursuits have been confined to urban exploration.
"I prefer my mental exploits to be enriching," he says, leaning back. The air is colder without his closeness, so I do the same. "Henry's thoughts are repetitive and dull. His thoughts about you, though…" He lets out a low whistle. "Regardless, I don't bother listening in."
I straighten. "What kind of thoughts?"
He looks away, sighing. "It's not my place to say."
"Please," I snort. "You're such a shit stirrer."
"A shit stirrer!" He whips his head back towards me, grinning. "Take that back."
"An instigator." I cross my arms. "A nosy little problem creator."
"Eloquently phrased."
"Fuck off," I laugh. "What does he think about me?"
The mischief on his face sharpens. "He loves you."
"I know that," I say, and mean it. Henry loves me. It's not his fault that he's not—
"He worries that he's not loving you well. He wants to," a scowl, "take care of you. As if you're a houseplant to be minded."
The venom isn't new or surprising. I lower my head to meet his eyes. "He's a good guy. Don't make that face. He is."
"Sure." He deflates. "I won't offend you by offering relationship advice."
"Offer whatever you'd like. I can't guarantee that I'll accept."
He groans, dragging his hand over his face. "Now you're tempting me on purpose."
"You're insufferable," I say without heat.
"Yet here you are, suffering me." Elbows hooked over the back of his chair, he tilts his head back. "You haven't answered my question, though."
I make a small, non-committal sound.
"Do you want me there?"
"Yes." If the quickness of my answer surprises him, he hides it with a nod.
"Sorted, then. I'll be there."
Since it’s our turn to host the potluck, Henry makes himself busy when he gets home from work. He arranges the throw blankets, dusts off his gaming console, and scrubs the two water glasses in the sink until his hands are red and raw.
The sun through the window leading to the fire escape casts pools of deep orange light onto my skin. I’m laying on the couch, pleasantly warm and a bit tired. My head rests on the pillow that Theodore absently adjusted a few nights ago, one that Henry recently fluffed and is now indented again. I haven’t spoken to either about them about that night. Henry avoided the subject as he ate his post-hangover meal and hasn’t mentioned it since. While he’s straightening the kitchen towels for the third time, I steel my courage and say, “Emily asked me to invite Theodore.”
I sit up and find him frozen, shoulders raised nearly to his ears like a prey animal playing dead. "Tonight?" he asks.
"Yep." Deciding against antagonizing him, I say, "You know how Emily gets." Blaming her is a coward's out, but it's better than explaining the alternative: that I want him there, not because I want my friends to meet him but because I'd rather have him near me than not. If it were an option that wouldn't result in Emily sending out a search party, I would skip the dinner altogether. I'd refuse to share his attention with anyone.
Henry goes back to washing dishes, more meticulous than he needs to be. "Who is this guy, anyway?"
He's not looking for an honest answer. If he was, he'd ask the question he actually wants to ask: Are you fucking him?
Andrew would've followed up with: Do you want to be?
I shrug. "Just someone I met at work."
"Did he go to Westin?"
It's meant to be an insult, implying that he went to the alternative school that Andrew was threatened with twice. Once for his grades, and once for his tendency towards violence. "No," I say, wrestling the defensiveness out of my tone. "He's from out of town."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"How long has he lived here?"
"I— don't know."
"What does he do for work?"
I snap my jaw shut.
He turns the faucet off and faces me. "What do you know about him?"
"He's lonely," I say, and it's the truth. "He needs… people. We could be his people."
Henry's expression softens. He dries his hands on the kitchen towel and walks towards me. I sit up so that when he stops just before the couch, his knees bracket mine. He's still wearing his work clothes, a pressed grey button-up and black slacks that bunch around his ankles. His hair is gelled back, but strands are loosened around his ears, giving him the aura of a boy pretending to be a man, exasperated by the flush of his cheeks and the watery brown of his eyes. He tilts up my chin with one finger and kisses me, soft and quick.
"I love you," he murmurs.
"Mmm."
"Broccoli or carrots?"
Mike and Emily arrive first. Henry is all polite smiles and cheery welcome, asking about Mike's fantasy football team and the painting Emily has been working on for the past two years ("Creation takes time," she says). He excuses himself soon after to pick up his brother. Since he's the only one with a car, he's our chauffeur whenever we're too far out or too lazy to walk. I consider arguing that he could've left earlier, that I would've been fine for five minutes by myself, but it's not worth the fight.
"What's Theodore bringing?" Emily asks, shuffling through cabinets and pulling out a stack of mismatched plates as Mike begins the hunt for silverware.
"An appetizer." I smooth the tablecloth. Henry insists on laying one every time we have company, even though our company has seen him cry over losing a spelling bee competition in the seventh grade. I drew the line at ironing it.
Mike appears behind me with seven forks and seven knives. "Nothing fancy, I hope."
Emily starts arranging the plates, setting the smallest one in the center. It's part of a tea set that she got me for Christmas when we were teenagers, part of her eternal mission to get me to stop drinking so much coffee. The matching cup has long since been lost, but the olive green saucer makes an appearance at every family dinner. "I told you to get the good wine."
"It tastes better when it comes from a box!"
A soft knock on the door makes all three of us turn. I start to move, but Emily is faster. “It’s my apartment,” I grumble half-heartedly.
"Then stop me," she pouts over her shoulder. I don't.
Theodore almost looks nervous standing in the doorway clutching a foil-covered ceramic bowl. He's wearing a collared tan shirt with the sleeves pushed up around his elbows and black trousers that taper in around his knees, an elegant but casual silhouette. It shouldn't surprise me that he's so well-dressed; he's had more than enough time to find a skilled tailor. The fabric is pulled taut around his shoulders until his eyes catch mine. I doubt that I imagine the synchronicity of our exhales, the way his ease leads my own like a partner in a waltz.
"Hi," I say.
An easy grin settles on his face. He's only sort of mocking me when he echoes, "Hi." He gestures with the bowl. "I brought—"
Emily ushers him inside. "Right, yeah, hi. I need your help setting the table."
Beside me, Mike frowns. "We've already set the table."
"Well, I need his help setting it again."
My face heats, but Theo only shrugs and shuffles behind Emily into the kitchen, pausing only to greet Mike with a nod. Once they're out of view, Mike nudges me with his shoulder and throws himself onto the couch, wrinkling the throw blankets that Henry meticulously folded. He spreads his arms wide, hooking his elbows over the back of the couch and raising his chin, motioning for me to sit next to him. I oblige, tucking my feet beneath me.
"You think James will bring cards?" he asks. "I forgot to ask him to, but he's very tuned into my desires."
The distraction is a kindness, his voice covering Emily's so I'm not tempted to eavesdrop. "You're that eager to lose money?"
"Oh, Rosie." He puts his arm around me and squeezes my shoulder. "We don't play for money anymore. We play for favors."
I shake off his touch and the chill, the nickname. "Uh huh. And how many favors does he owe you?"
He shoots me the grin that won him homecoming king, like he doesn't have any secrets, like I'm not only his closest friend but his only friend, the only person on the planet that exists to him in this moment. The warmth isn't an act. It's what drew Emily to him, the sincerity of his kindness. Andrew called him a puppy in the world of wolves. I called him sweet, and Andrew moped for two hours.
"Six," Mike says, "but I'll be redeeming one tonight."
"Oh?"
"He's giving me his dessert."
"Sorry to spoil your plans, but I made enough for you to have seconds."
"I'll have thirds, then." He winks as Emily and Theo emerge from the kitchen. Emily's frowning, but Theo's face is impassive, almost smug. "Theodore," Mike calls over his shoulder, "do you play poker?"
"You don't have to indulge him," Emily says, balancing on the arm of the couch.
Theo sits next to me, a modest distance away. "Not well," he admits. "The person who taught me was a cheat. I've only ever played with an ace up my sleeve."
"You'll fit right in then," Mike says. The front door clicks open. "James cheats, too."
"Lies and slander," James says from the doorway. Henry stands beside him, stiff like he'll fall over and play dead if it'll get him out of the impending interaction. Lucky for him—and unlucky for the rest of us— James is faster. He jerks his chin towards Theo. "What the fuck is he doing here?"
Emily stands, and Mike and Theo follow suit. I remain on the couch, wondering how small I have to become to disappear between the cushions.
"He's a guest," Emily snipes, "and we're going to treat him like it. If you want to behave like a dog, I'll put you out like one."
Theo paces towards the two brothers, his gait easy and shoulders low. His dimple flashes, and he extends his hand towards Henry. "Delighted to see you again," he drawls.
For a breath, I worry that Henry will slap his hand away, that he'll choose raw emotion over civility. Andrew would've let his viper tongue slip and bared his teeth, seeking flesh. He wouldn't let go until he tasted blood.
Henry takes Theodore's hand and shakes it once, but his placating smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Glad you could come." Always trying to be perfect, and never quite getting it right. "I'm sorry about my behavior the other night. It wasn't the most flattering first impression, I'm sure."
"Water under the bridge. You have a lovely home. Very," he glances around, catching my eye for the briefest moment before turning back to Henry, "austere."
I clamp down on my smile and think pointedly in his direction, Don't goad him.
Henry offers a vacant response about the decor or lack thereof, but it's Theo's voice that fills my mind. I'd be lying if I said I was surprised by the playful whine of his words. But I'm so good at it.
"Wonderful," Emily sighs. "Machismo settled. Can we please eat? I'm starving."