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“In the kitchen.”
“He’s smart,” Emery said in an aside to Auggie as he headed toward the kitchen, “but zero social skills.”
“Hmm,” Auggie said in what he hoped was his most noncommittal tone.
The kitchen, it turned out, was the center of the madness in the house. Lana and Evie gabbled over each other as they focused their attention to loading the lunchbox with fruit snacks—only minimally supervised now by Colt. The boy had turned his attention to the other men in the room. To one man, in particular.
North McKinney had a thatch of blond hair, and he was built big and muscular in a way that made Auggie, even as an adult, feel a twinge of envy. In a gray tee that said BARNEY’S FISH AND CHIPS, he slouched against the cabinets, a beer in hand. “—you could paint it yourself, but that’s a lot of work. And you’ve got to decide if you’re going to spend your money on that, or if you want to save it toward the next one.”
“Definitely the next one,” Colt said. Lana tugged on his hand, and Colt made a dismissing noise without pulling his gaze away from North. “So, like, I should change my own oil, right?”
“Not this again,” Emery said.
“You don’t change your own oil?”
A flush rode Colt’s cheekbones. “Uh, I mean, Pops said—”
“Because he doesn’t know how.”
“I know how,” Emery said. “But I’m not interested in spending half a day doing a job I can pay someone else to do for forty dollars, thank you very much.”
“Half a day,” North said. “If it takes you half a day, you don’t know how to do it.”
“Maybe, um, you could teach me?” Colt’s blush intensified. “I mean, I know you’re busy, so, like, not right now—”
“He can’t teach you because he doesn’t know how,” Shaw said. North’s partner was wearing a black leotard and, probably only because North had insisted, baby blue shorts that only minimally covered his junk. He had cornered Ashley, Colt’s boyfriend, and he broke off from whatever he’d been saying to speak over his shoulder. “One time North said he was going to change the oil, and it was hours and hours, and I went out there, and he’d taken off his shirt and he was all hot and sweaty and there wasn’t any oil anywhere. So, I said—”
Colt’s eyes darted to Shaw and then back to North. To North’s chest, actually, if Auggie weren’t mistaken. Only for a heartbeat. Emery must have noticed too, though, because the muscles in his jaw stood out.
“I know how to do it, for fu—” North shot the girls a look. “I know how to do it. I can show you.”
“Seriously? That would be dope. Ash, did you hear that?”
Ashley didn’t appear to have heard, though, because he was currently trying to wriggle free from where Shaw had trapped him. Shaw was talking nonstop—the only part Auggie understood was “Would it help if I summoned my Patronus first?”—but when Ashley slid a few inches farther, Shaw’s arm shot out to block the escape.
“Good fucking Lord,” Emery said under his breath. “Excuse me while I go blow my brains out.”
“Not that one.” The voice belonged to Jem Berger. Tean’s husband worked in real estate, although Theo had said on more than one occasion that he didn’t believe that story. Auggie wasn’t sure; Jem was a puzzle. Clearly savvy, keenly trendy—although he skewed more toward vintage stuff, not really Auggie’s vibe. But every once in a while, Auggie caught a glimpse of something else, like laughter or amusement that didn’t quite line up with what was going on, and he wondered what he was missing. Right then, he was bent over John-Henry’s phone, shaking his head. “No, definitely not. You’re already fighting a losing battle in the ass department. Those are going to make you look like you’re lugging around a couple of sacks of flour.”
“Gee,” John-Henry said, “thanks.”
Jem flashed a grin, a hint of his slightly crooked front teeth making an appearance, and swiped on John-Henry’s phone a couple of times. “What about these?”
“Uh.” John-Henry seemed at a loss for words. “They look…young.”
Jem burst out laughing. “We’ll get them in this khaki color, and we’ll go a little longer because I don’t think you want to wear them above the ankle. I’m telling you, this is the pair.”
“What are you guys doing?” Auggie asked as he worked his way across the kitchen.
“Bankrupting me,” Emery said.
John-Henry flashed his husband a smile before saying to Auggie, “A little wardrobe update. Jem is really good at this stuff.”
“He’s motivated by existential despair, he told us. He wanted Tean to tell us about Sartre.”
“To be fair, I’m motivated by existential despair about everything,” Jem said. “We all are. Right, Tean?”
Tean’s voice floated back from the living room: “I’m not listening.”
