They stayed like that for a while. The movie remained paused. The sun finished setting. The loft filled with the blue-gray light of dusk. Eventually Nero picked up his book again with his free hand, and Amani closed his eyes and let the rhythm of Nero's fingers in his hair pull him toward sleep, and the last thing he thought before he dozed off was: I am the most loved person I know.
***
It was Bethany's idea.
"Body shots," she said, one Friday night, three months and change after the ranch. "On the bar. You. Me in a crown."
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because we're adults and because Mom would disown both of us."
"Mom is in Reno for a convention. That's the point."
Amani was behind the bar. Bethany was in front of it, in her usual crop top and the tiny shorts, her hair up in a ridiculous ponytail that flopped around when she moved, like a pony with opinions. She'd just finished her shift at the front desk. The club was packed. It was nearing midnight. Bethany had clearly spent the last six hours building up to this proposal. Reza had the rail. Amani had been floating all night, working the creative orders while Reza ran the volume, and the rhythm had been good. This proposal.
"Mom will find out," Amani said.
"Mom will absolutely find out. But by then it'll be over and you'll have done it and we'll both have great stories to tell at Thanksgiving."
"I'm not doing body shots off you."
"Obviously not off me, off you. You're the star. I'm merely the emcee."
"You're the emcee."
"I'm wearing a crown. I already told you."
Nero, who had been sitting at his stool listening to this entire exchange, lost it. He laughed, actually laughed, head tipped back, the full laugh that Amani had been collecting like seashells over the past three months. It was a good sound. It made Bethany laugh too. Then Amani laughed. Then the three of them were laughing like idiots at the end of the bar and half the club was looking at them.
"Fine," Amani said. "Fine. One. Limited engagement. Tequila."
Bethany shrieked and vanished in the direction of the storage room. When she came back, she was wearing a plastic tiara she must have had squirreled away for exactly that eventuality. She climbed up on a barstool and clapped her hands twice.
"Excuse me!" she called out to the club. She had her mother's carrying voice when she wanted it. "Excuse me, regulars and newcomers alike! Tonight is a historic night at Kinky Kritters, a night of celebration, a night of recovery, a night of my brother being talked into something he swore he would never do—"
"This is happening?" Nero asked Amani.
"This is happening." Amani took a deep breath and centered himself. It was going to be a real test of his recovery.
"I'm going to need to document this for evidence."
"Don't you dare."
"Officially for evidence. Unofficially to put it in a frame on my desk."
Amani hopped up on the bar. He did it without thinking about it, the way he used to hop up on the bar when he was nineteen and invincible, and only registered halfway up that he had made the move without hesitation, without the careful body-check that had been his default for months. The motion was his. The bar was his. The room was his. He was wearing the tiny shorts, no shirt, with the collar scar was visible and he was laughing.
He lay back on the bar. Bethany produced a lime and a saltshaker and a shot of tequila. Amani closed his eyes and grinned. The whole bar started cheering. Someone was whistling. Nero was there at the edge of the bar with his phoneabsolutely out despite Amani's threats Amani did not care, did not care, did not care.
Sero, who had been at his usual stool, lifted his Coke in a salute.
Marco, the gorilla bouncer, whistled from the door.
Lady Leo, wherever she was in Reno, absolutely had a sense that her children were doing something in her club that she would have stopped if she'd been there. Amani could feel it in his bones, and Amani did not care.
Nero did the shot.
