Page 54 of Keep

Don’t do it. Don’t go all soft and verbal. You’ll regret it in the morning.

“It’s good,” he said, now adding the sausage. “It’s—yeah. It’s good.”

“Elaborate. You’re an art student. Paint me a picture.”

“He called me from Georgia last night. We talked for almost an hour. He told me about his ex-wife’s house, his godson grabbing his beard.” Chad kept his eyes on the pan. Easier to talk to sausage than to Ricky’s face when Ricky’s face was analyzing. “He mentioned bringing me down there sometime. Meeting people.”

“That’s serious.”

“I know.”

“That’s meet-the-family serious.”

“I’m aware.”

“How do you feel about that?”

Terrified. Hopeful. Like showing up to a final and realizing you studied for the wrong exam.

“Fine,” Chad said.

“Liar.”

“I feel fine about it, Ricky.”

“Your shoulders are up around your ears. You look like a very tense coat hanger.”

Chad exhaled and made himself relax. The problem with living with someone who knew you was that they knew you. Every tell. Every dodge.

“I like him,” Chad said. Which was true, and also the understatement of the century, and also all he could manage out loud. The rest of it—the way Hank looked at him like he was the answer to a question Hank had been afraid to ask, the way Hank opened car doors and blushed often, the way Chad had caught himself sketching Hank’s profile in the margin of his art history notes like a teenager with a crush—stayed interior. Where it was safe. Where he couldn’t jinx it.

“You like him,” Ricky repeated. Flat. “You like him. Like you like pizza. Like you like sleeping in.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say what’s actually happening behind that bartender poker face you think nobody can see through.”

Chad pointed the spatula at him. “Drop it.”

“Dropped.” Ricky held up his hands. Then, after a beat: “You’re falling for him.”

It wasn’t a question.

Two for two. Your goddamn picker.

Except it didn’t feel like the picker this time. Mac had been chaos dressed up as chemistry. Jonathan had been a con in a good disguise. Hank was—what? A man who bought condoms at CVS and called it hopeful. A man who said I’m a senator after sex because his brain short-circuited and the truth fell out.

“Yeah,” Chad said quietly. “Maybe.”

“Maybe.” Ricky’s smile was small and real. “Okay. Maybe.”

He didn’t push. That was the thing about Ricky—for all the theater, all the noise, he knew when to stop. He’d found the edge, and he’d stepped back from it, and the stepping back said more than any follow-up question would have.

Chad poured the crushed tomatoes into the pan. They hissed and settled.

“Oh,” Ricky said, in a deliberately different register—lighter, brighter, subject-change energy. “George is doing a whole thing at David’s for National Coming Out Day. October 11th. Rainbow menu, open mic special, Mikey’s probably going to sing something that makes everyone weep into their moussaka.”

“Guaranteed.”