Page 130 of One Adult, Please

"Gregory, I swear to god."

We settle. The blankets redistribute. I give up two of the four and feel like I've made an enormous sacrifice. Beck tucks himself against my left side, arm over my waist. Joel is on my right. Grant adjusts so my head is still in his lap and his back is against the curved wall.

"My mom's going to meet you," I say.

"Terrifying," Beck says.

"She's going to make you eat something with protein."

"Less terrifying."

"She's going to ask you questions. Individual questions about your intentions. She's going to use the word intentions."

"Slightly more terrifying."

"Joel, she's going to ask about your job. Your real job. Before. She's going to want to know that you're stable."

"I maintained critical water and power infrastructure for a theme park during a societal collapse," Joel says. "I'm stable."

"Grant, she's going to love you immediately because you have a wallaby and you're gentle. And she's going to cry when she meets Pepper. Mom cries at baby animals. She cried at a documentary about penguins for forty-five minutes. Penguins, Grant."

"Penguins are emotional," Grant says.

"And Beck, she's going to be suspicious of you."

"Why me?"

"Because Mom doesn't trust charming. She's going to watch you like a hawk. Not like Captain. Like a mom hawk. She'll see through the grin."

"Good," Beck says. His arm tightens around me. "Let her see through the grin. Let her see what's under it."

"What's under it?"

"A man who found a woman who broke into a theme park with a foam trident and decided that she was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen and he was going to follow her around until she let him stay."

"That's very... that's..."

"If you cry."

"I'm not crying. My eyes are doing a moisture thing. It's the tunnel. The tunnel is humid. Fish humidity."

The thumping slows. One last half-hearted thump, then silence.

"I need to tell you guys something," I say.

"You already said the love thing," Beck says. "No take-backs."

"I'm not taking it back. I'm adding to it. Addendum. I've always gotten up alone. After every fall. The getting up is alone because the falling is alone. You can't fall with someone, falling is a solo activity, falling is..."

I stop, regroup, and find the words. The wrong words. My words.

"I don't have to get up alone anymore," I say. "And I don't have to fall to be held."

Beck pulls me closer. Joel's hand finds mine. Grant keeps stroking my hair, slow and steady.

Gregory shuffles away to cockblock another day.

And we stay there, tangled and sticky and glowing. Four disasters finally exactly where we're supposed to be.