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“Absolutely,” he says, and kisses me.
On our drive back to Seattle, Chase drums on the steering wheel, humming along to the music.
During a lull in one of the songs, I tell him, “My parents went out with Sophie’s tonight. So . . . no one’s at my house.”
“Huh,” Chase says. “I’m not sure why I’d be interested in that.”
“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t be.”
“The Forty-Fifth Street exit and then a left on Latona?”
“A left on Latona,” I echo.
His jaw drops when he sees the grand piano in the living room. “Fucking hell. It’s beautiful. Play something?”
I sit down and start “Clocks,” which makes him groan.
He sits down on the bench next to me facing the opposite direction. “I wanted to talk to you,” he says, drawing circles on my knee with a fingertip, “about the Sophie stuff.”
The Sophie stuff. It sounds almost trivial, the way he says it, and for a moment my stomach twists in annoyance.
“We don’t—”
r /> “No. We do. Or I do, at least.” He takes a deep breath. “I need you to know that I haven’t been weird about it because you’re bi.”
“Oh—okay,” I say, but I’m glad he says it. “I . . . appreciate that. I told you I liked her once, but trust me, that’s completely over. I’m with you.”
“I believe you,” he says. “I know you’ve been friends forever. And I don’t want to feel like I’m competing with her. I probably just need to get to know her better.”
The annoyance fades. He doesn’t understand Sophie and me, it’s true—but I love that he wants to try.
“That means a lot,” I say quietly, pressing closer to him.
“You have always looked so good behind that thing.” He leans his head on my shoulder. “I don’t know if there’s anything hotter than a guy who plays piano.”
“A guy who plays guitar?”
He kisses my neck, and I have to adjust so that we’re facing each other on the bench. Then I get up, beckoning for him to follow me down the hall.
“Is that Mark?” Chase asks when we get inside my room, pointing to the chinchilla cage.
“That’s Mark. I always thought it would be funny to have a pet with, like, a super-basic white-guy name.”
“Mark,” Chase says again. “Mark the chinchilla.”
“You want to hold him?” I ask, already unlatching his cage.
His eyes get huge behind his glasses as I pass over the little mound of fur that is Mark. “I can’t believe how soft he is.” He runs a hand along Mark’s back. “Oh my God, I think I love him.”
I head over to my music collection and record player. “What do you want to listen to?” I ask.
“Something good.”
“I’m not sure I like the insinuation that I own anything bad.”
I help Chase return Mark to his cage, and he joins me in front of my record collection. Eyes wide, he pulls one out. “The Carpenters? You don’t strike me as a Carpenters fan.”
“They’re good,” I say. “And what does a Carpenters fan look like?”
