Every year his mom would make a traditional Haitian pumpkin and beef stew and invite our group over. Traditionally the soup was part of the New Year’s Day celebration our families always did together, but after we got out of college and were busy doing our own things, Odette started making it in the fall, when “we could all make it.” This year only Nesto, the fourth guy in our little crew from the Bronx, would be missing it.
Nesto moved to Ithaca the year before to try his luck in getting his Caribbean food truck to take off. He’d had massive success up there and this past spring opened his restaurant. Along the way he’d also met Jude, the love of his life, and they were happy as fucking clams up there in the boonies. I missed having him around but was so thrilled for him and all he’dachieved in the past year. He’d worked his ass off to make his dream happen and deserved everything he’d gotten.
Now Patrice was up there, too. He’d finally finished his PhD at Columbia in May and taken a position as an assistant professor for the economics department at Cornell University. Although he assured us there was nothing going on, it didn’t escape any of us that from all the offers he had—and he’d gotten plenty—he chose the school in the town where a certain assistant district attorney he’d gotten tangled up with last year lived.
“What are you glaring at?” Juanpa walked out of the kitchen with a wine opener and three glasses, looking like Drake’s skinnier little brother.
“He’s been sexting with Hudson or whatever the fuck his name is since he got here,” he said, angling his head in Patrice’s direction. Juanpa refused to call Easton by his name just to get a rise out of Patrice. “He thinks I can’t tell, but his eyebrows get mad twitchy when he’s up to something. You’re not fooling anyone, pa.” He cut his eyes at Patrice and we all laughed. I noticed Patrice didn’t even try to deny what Juanpa was saying though.
Juanpa turned to me after a minute as he poured us all some wine. “How was your meeting with the millionaire? Did he get creepy on you?”
I shook my head and sighed. “Nope, not at all. He cleared the air as soon as I got there, assured me he would be respectful, and then we proceeded to have an hour of polite conversation. If anything, now I’m more attracted to him.” I took a big gulp from the glass Juanpa had just handed to me and slumped on the couch. “I’m such a hypocrite, too, because I was actually disappointed. I was hoping he’d be all flirty and suggestive, and then I could just say he was the one who started it. But instead, he was real and respectful and basically gave me no excuses to do anything stupid. Isn’t that fucked up?”
Neither of them answered, they knew me well enough to know I had to process all this to death and that I probably had more to say.
“I don’t even know why I’m so worked up about this guy. What could possibly happen between us? He’s a rich dude with all kinds of privilege; it’s only a matter of time before all that rears its ugly head.” Even as I said it I felt like shit, because so far all I’d seen from Tom was that he was generous and incredibly down-to-earth.
The eye roll I got from Juanpa was so intense, his eyelids actually popped. Patrice just looked at me and shook his head like I was an idiot.
“Why do you need to take everything to the extreme, Camilo? Why can’t you just chill and see what happens?” Juanpa rarely chimed in when it came to relationships, so the fact that he was so fired up about this gave me pause. “Not everything needs to be decided and done with after two minutes.”
“Like I’m taking advice from you. You’ve been in love with Priscilla for eighteen years and you still can’t make yourself say it.” It was a low blow to bring up his ex, but I didn’t want him to get too comfortable with these lectures.
“We’re not talking about me right now though.” He jerked his thumb at Patrice. “And we’re not talking about how this one is upstate now, literally fucking with the Po-Po?—
“He’s not a cop!” All three of us looked stunned at Patrice’s very out-of-character outburst and then Juanpa busted up, pointing a finger at him.
“Eeeey! Made you say it!” His glee at Patrice’s slip up was hilarious.
Patrice just glared and muttered. “Asshole.”
Juanpa just kept shaking his head with a huge grin on his face. “Can’t take it back, my guy.”
The interlude was fun, but we were supposed to be focusing on my fucking man problems. So I got up and waved my hands in between J and Patrice.
“Back to me, assholes!”
Did that shut Juanpa up? Nope, he jumped right back into his lecture.
“Nah. That’s where your shit gets problematic, Camilo.” He pointed his glass of rosé at me to press his point. It was really hard to take this asshole seriously sometimes.
“You’re too judgmental, pa. You create a whole fucking situation in your head. God forbid a dude says or does something differently than how you deem it should be done, then they’re dead to you. You don’t leave any room for people to be human, mi hermano. Under those conditions you will always be disappointed. Full stop.”
I was about to respond with something defensive, but before I spoke all the air went out of me. Because he was right. I was always anticipating disaster or predicting all the ways in which people would let me down before we even got started. There was nothing about Tom to dislike or judge. I knew he wasn’t perfect—no one was—but so far all he’d been to me was decent.
“Fine. I’ll try to keep an open mind.”
Juanpa and Patrice both widened their eyes after I said that.
“Wow. This guymustbe something,” Patrice said in a rare display of emotion.
Juan Pablo, who thought he was fucking hilarious, got up and put his palm on my forehead pretending to feel for a fever. I slapped it away and took another sip of my wine.
“Leave me alone, you idiot.”
He took his phone out of this pocket.
“We’re calling Nesto, because he needs to know there’s some molecular level shit happening with you. I mean you almost admitted to me being right about something, and if that’s not anindication we need to keep you under close observation, I don’t know what is.”
