“Okay, but lowkey,” Rei says to Luke, interrupting my swirling thoughts. “If this is part of the reason you’ve stayed away so long, I donotblame you.” They look at me with a feline grin of approval, and I suddenly feel like I’m being sized up for a meal.
“Rei, this is my boyfriend, Ethan,” Luke introduces, giving me an apologetic grin.
There’s a sudden, unexpected flurry of emotion in my chest to hear Luke introduce me to his roommate like that—ashisboyfriend. It’s the first time he’s done that to anyone since we started dating, and warmth rises to my cheeks with the acknowledgment. Damn. If I’d known the swell of pride being referred to as ‘his’ would bring me, I would have come out ten times already with my friends back home.
“Ethan, this is Rei,” Luke continues, affectionately tousling his roommate’s hair. “They’re a children’s book illustrator, and the one responsible for all the plants overtaking the apartment.”
“You’re welcome for all the life-giving oxygen.” Rei dips their head as if they’ve just been given the highest compliment. Then they grin, giving me another long up-and-down look of unmistakable ogling. “Jesus. I didn’t know the Midwest made such fucking beefcakes. What do theyfeedyou out there? Are you telling me I have to go to the land of corn to find a piece of meat like this for myself?”
“Rei.” Luke’s eye twitches slightly. “He’s barely been here five minutes. Please don’t scare him away with your nonsense after all the trouble it took getting him here.”
“Don’t worry. He’s ‘Built Ford Tough.’ I can tell,” they say, giving me a little wink.
Luke groans and rolls his eyes. I can’t help but grin. I think I’m going to like this short person.
Suddenly, a loud commotion from down the hall grabs our attention, and we turn just as a small black cat comes barreling out of another room, claws scraping against the old wooden floors as it runs at full tilt toward us. I instantly recognize Misty, Luke’s long-missed fur baby, her bright blue eyes shining out in stark contrast to the dark fur. She’s making such an urgent mewling sound that I’m concerned she’s in distress, but she bolts right for Luke with obvious intent.
“Misty!” Luke lets out a broken sob right as the cat leaps off the floor, practically throwing herself into his outstretched arms. She vaults six feet up into the air as if it were nothing, which makes me think she’s had lots of practice.
Misty’s paws are on Luke’s chest, and she’s meowing so loudly and animatedly in his face that I get the distinct impression she’s yelling at him in her broken chatter. If she spoke English, I’m positive I’d hear a few choice words in the mix. But then she squirms enthusiastically in Luke’s grip, jumping onto his shoulders to aggressively rub her face against the back of his head before melting like a slinky into his arms again. She butts her head against his chin with an aggressive thwomp, only to turn around and sink her teeth into his neck—without breaking any skin—a moment later. It’s almost like she doesn’t know whether to be mad at him for disappearing or to maul him with love now that he’s back. I’ve never seen a cat act like this in my entire life, and I’m shocked but touched by the reaction.
For Luke, it’s completely overwhelming. He sinks to the floor, hugging Misty tightly against his chest, and he sobs as he pushes his face against her fur, apologizing for leaving her, and promising to never leave her again. She starts purring uncontrollably, and I can’t help but wonder if she somehow understands his blubbering. It’s such a heartbreakingly tender reunion that I feel myself tearing up watching it. Rei clearly feels it, too, wiping tears from their eyes as they sink to the floor to hug Luke and pet Misty at the same time.
I crouch down and grip Luke’s knee, trying to offer some comfort, and Luke takes my hand, squeezing my fingers so desperately it’s like he can’t exist without me. He turns with such a startlingly vulnerable look in his eye and says, “Thank you,” and it hits me like a wave. I can feel the full weight behind those two little words and everything he’s tying to them: being here,home,with me, even if it’s only for the moment.
God, if only this man knew how much I love him. It still shocks me whenever I realize how much I do. Going against the fear and anxiety of coming to this city wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t absolutely and utterly besotted, and that terrifies me as well. I just wish I had the courage to tell him any of this.
But seeing Luke here—spending only five minutes in his world—has resolidified the truth. We don’t belong together. We were always doomed to find our way to ruin, our paths reaching their ultimate divergence where our worlds can’t meet. Hebelongshere. I don’t.
If I were a smart man, I would have accounted for that the moment I first realized I was attracted to him. If we’d never gotten together in the first place, it could have saved us the inevitable heartache. Maybe it would have been worth it to stay away. Somehow, I know it wouldn’t have been.
For now, I content myself with the fact that we’re still together. No matter how much time we might have left together, I won’t squander it worrying about all the what-ifs. For now, I cup a hand to Luke’s cheek and wipe away his tears, then I lean in and kiss him, trying to put all my feelings behind it, hoping that he understands.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
So, This Is Love
WemeetLuke’sothertwo roommates, Star and Dmitry, later that night for dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant called Hav & Mar a few blocks from the apartment. According to Rei, it’s one of Luke’s favorites, so they’d taken the liberty of making reservations as a surprise for his return, much to Luke’s delight.
However, beneath his excitement, there’s an undercurrent of anxious dread in Luke’s demeanor that I immediately pick up on but can’t quite pin down. At least until we get there, and I see some of the prices on the menu. The food cost isn’t the worst I’ve seen (unless you order the Black Mermaid Tower, which costs a whopping $135 on its own), but the alcohol will definitely get you in the end. The cocktails are the cost of a meal on their own, and part of the experience comes from the mixologists crafting the most beautiful drinks I’ve ever seen right in the middle of the restaurant. This group clearly isn’t one to skimp on the drinks on a night out on the town, so I can understand a bit of the apprehension.
Luke stares at the menu with a twinge of remorse. Knowing his woes about money, I grab his hand and pull him closer, whispering that he should order whatever he wants and that it’s on me. I can tell he wants to shut me down immediately, almost like a knee-jerk response, but I insist until he flushes pink and returns to the menu. The slight smile on his lips and the way he physically relaxes with that worry out of the way is reward enough.
While we drink and wait for the food to arrive, I get to know everyone and learn how they all met.
Rei is twenty-eight, the youngest of the group. They’re a New Yorker, through and through, and their parents still live in Brooklyn. Bob and Cindy, as Rei affectionately calls them, are incredibly supportive and never had an issue after Rei came out as non-binary and genderfluid at fourteen. In fact, they embraced it so quickly that Rei felt scammed out of a proper coming-out experience.
“I put together a whole PowerPoint presentation with my research on the subject to help them understand what I was going through, but they didn’t even let me get to it!” Rei exclaims exasperatedly, though with obvious warmth. “They weren’t even the least bit confused and just immediately accepted it like, ‘That’s my them!’ It was fucking hilarious. But that’s Bob and Cindy for ya.”
Everyone immediately jumps in with more heartwarming stories of Rei’s parents, and I get the sense that they’ve all been embraced under their supportive wings. Luke confirms that they’ve gotten together for almost every major holiday and even taken a few vacations together, which is a pleasure most of this group hasn’t been afforded by their own families in a long time.
Star especially thinks of them as her adoptive parents. She’s a thirty-six-year-old transwoman from the deepest heart of the Mississippi bible-belt, who left home at sixteen for obviousreasons. She’s been no-contact with most of her family for the last twenty years. However, she still talks with her brother occasionally—he’s the only one who accepted her transition and stopped calling her by her deadname, though he’ll only call her when there’s no one around to hear him. She’s accepted it for what it is and is at least glad he makes the effort to connect with her.
Yet her story isn’t all bad. She’d found her way to NYC and made friends with others in the queer community who took her in and helped her get settled. The way she explains it sounds almost romantic, even though I know she likely struggled a lot with it at the time. And this, she says, is when she found her unexpected calling in art restoration. After slowly putting herself through college with grants and scholarships, and working seven days a week at a little diner, she found work with a local, independent, but well-known, art conservationist. She’s been cleaning and retouching old paintings, repairing priceless porcelain vases, and helping her boss when he’s asked to consult onveryfamous pieces in art museums and private collections all around the world ever since. She’s loved every minute of it.
Not too shockingly, she and Rei met in art school, and they’ve been best friends for as long as they’ve known each other. Together, they met Luke through a mutual friend at a New Year’s party eight years ago, falling madly in love with him after only five minutes of conversation. They describe their first meeting as a daring rescue, like Luke was being held captive and they had valiantly liberated him. Luke clarifies that he’d just caught his boyfriend doing coke and having sex with a twink from Jersey in the bathroom, so he was in desperate need of escape. Since he’d been living with the guy, he needed a place to go, and Rei and Star jumped at the opportunity to bring him home.
Then there’s Dmitry, the only one among the group who has nothing to do with the arts. Instead, he took the path tobecoming a real estate agent and is slowly growing his business from the ground up. He’s a first-generation American, born in Russia, but raised by immigrant parents who fled the Soviet Union near the end of the Cold War when he was a baby. New York City is the only home he’s ever known. But at seventeen, after his devout Eastern Orthodox parents discovered that he was gay, they kicked him out of the house when he refused to repent and give up his ‘homosexual behaviors.’ He was effectively homeless for a few years after that, couch surfing whenever possible and living in shelters, working two, sometimes three, jobs until he’d saved up enough money to find a stable place of his own.
