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Though embarrassment might not have been quite the word. It was more like… being laid bare. Because I thought I’d done a decent job of playing it cool this evening, save for the one outburst.
I’d put in countless hours of therapy over the years, which was why I hadn’t fallen apart when my life spiraled out of control this year. I dealt with the abrupt changes by deploying radical acceptance all over them. I affirmed with the best of them. I had tools now that I didn’t in my early twenties.
Tools that had utterly failed me the moment an honest-to-God blush bloomed across my cheeks.
Me. An almost thirty-year-old man. Liem had said much worse things in front of me before without triggering any kind of physiological reaction.
I will not be self-conscious by how much I like talking to Bree.
Liem is here and safe, and this is probably the final act of a long, weird night.
No matter what happens after today, it has been a good birthday for Liem.
Blush gone, equilibrium restored, I clocked back into the world around me to find Bree and Liem locked in a heated debate.
“I had to know,” Liem whined to a visibly unimpressed Bree, who had her arms crossed and her face set in a scowl.
“Liem. No. Why couldn’t you just google it?”
“That’s not how you know things. You can’t know a flavor, a texture, by reading about it! You have to conduct a study!”
“Liem.” She uncrossed her arms and untied her bandana before retying it with deft fingers.
I glanced at Liem, grimacing at the slight green tinge to his complexion that I’d missed before. “Please tell me those milkshakes aren’t the boozy kind.”
He clamped his mouth and eyes shut and braced his arms on the counter as Bree replied for him.
“No. They’re not, but this might be worse.” She gestured to Liem who was now moaning in pain. “From what I understand, he wanted to know the difference between a milkshake and a malt. Dawn’s has both on the menu.” She moved her hands to her hips, the expression on her face so disapproving that it would make my mother proud.
I raised my eyebrows, encouraging her to go on.
“So, he got two of each.”
“No.”
She nodded grimly. “Two malts and two milkshakes. Both large.”
Liem half-heartedly defended himself with his head resting on the counter, muffling his words. “I told the cook that it was my birthday and I wanted to see how the milkshakes were made. I thought it would be a cool addition to Brothers.”
“You know we’re not changing the restaurant name to that.”
He ignored me and continued his account. “But then he asked me if I wanted a milkshake or a malt. I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t. So, I didn’t.”
“Pfffff.”
The exasperated noise I made sounded amplified, and I looked at Bree to find her cheeks also puffed out. It seemed she’d already picked up one of my mannerisms. Her gray eyes twinkled, and I wasn’t sure who cracked first, but the next thing I knew, I was bent over, laughing in a way that took me by surprise.
It wasn’t a little laugh. It was the kind that shook loose tensions and worries that you didn’t even know you still harbored. The kind that usually partnered with a hit of adrenaline.
Once I had control of myself enough to check in on the other two, I saw that Bree’s eyes were shining—in the good way—and she had her hand placed firmly over her mouth. Liem was watching us both with a glimmer in his eyes that I didn’t have the capacity to interpret while a second wind of laughter tried to take hold.
“Well, what was the conclusion?” I asked, managing to keep a straight face.
He shrugged. “They’re both good. I brought one of each out here when I saw y’all walk in, but honestly… if I have to watch you drink these, I might actually perish.”
Bree dropped her hand and slid the shake nearest her away. “Well, then, my birthday gift to you is to decline this.”
“Are you ready to call it a night?” I asked them both, but then turned to Liem, remembering the reason we were here. “Why didn’t you meet us on the bridge?”
