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1.
"Cass," Cai mumbles, and reaches around awkwardly behind himself to find a patch of bare skin that he can pat-slash-slap with the back of his hand. "Cass, it's like twelve-thirty, we should probably get up."
Cass Rohmann's tiny apartment is air-conditioner-less and humid and hell in the summer, and her twin bed with its sonic-screwdriver-patterned flannel sheets (seriously, you would think this woman was fourteen instead of twenty-four) certainly doesn't improve matters any. Cai kicked the tangled covers down to his feet about eight hours ago, but Cass is a serious cuddler once she's asleep. Generally bare boob pressing into Cai's back would not be an unappealing prospect, but right now, Jesus Christ, Cass might be shorter than even he is but she is not small and about half of her is on top of him right now and the heat of day has been seeping through the black fabric curtains and turning this room into an oven, and next time he stays over he really has to bring a portable fan at the very least. Or three.
Cass just tightens her grip around Cai's midriff and mutters something which is probably "Hey, twelve-thirty is early on a... what day is this?"
"Saturday," Cai sighs, and tries unsuccessfully to roll over. "When I say 'we should probably get up', I actually mean that your apartment is about a hundred degrees and you're suffocating me and I need air."
"Aw, shit," Cass says, sounding more awake, and lets go of him and sort of half-sits up. "Did I crush you?"
"I'm okay," Cai says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Shit, his glasses, where did he leave his glasses? Usually he remembers this kind of thing, but he got a little carried away last night. And, ooh, they really need to wash these sheets, ew.
"God, it really is hot." Cass runs her fingers through her hair, shoving it back out of her face, and huffs out a breath. "How the fuck did we have sex in this?"
Cai leans back against the wall, his back sticking sweatily to a poster that's probably of Benedict Cumberbatch or something, and says nothing. This isn't something they're supposed to explicitly talk about. That's part of the agreement that they never actually discuss aloud. The problem with Cass is that she keeps trying to pretend that just because it's unspoken it's not there.
"Can I take a shower?" he asks. Cass looks at him in what's probably surprise but mostly looks like blur. "Dude, of course. Be my guest."
"Can you find my glasses?" Cai asks as he stumbles out of bed and narrowly avoids running into a doorframe. "I think I dropped them on the floor or something."
"Sure," Cass calls after him, not that he can hear her moving. She's almost certainly watching his butt.
God, but the cold water of the shower is nice. Cai's pretty sure he never wants to get out of it again. Maybe if he stays here long enough Cass will open some windows or something.
The thing about Cass is that she's probably the only person in the world, or at least the only person who Cai cares about at all, who actually finds his particular brand of tiny-crazy-moody-intense-hot attractive, and that's because she's actually kind of crazy. Like, sure, Cai likes Cass in a good-friends-with-benefits way, but not the way Cass likes him. He's willing to use it, but that doesn't mean he really understands why. Dallas and Caitlin and the people he meets in bars are usually intimidated by him or just think he's weird and grumpy, and Marcus doesn't even seem to notice, and--
Okay. Okay. Not thinking about Marcus right now. Cold water, keep doing your thing, please.
Cai wraps himself in a towel and blunders his way back to the bedroom. Cass is gone along with some of the clothes-shaped blurs on the floor, but his glasses are sitting on the bed where he can easily either find them or, depending on how lucky he is, sit on them. Either Cass keeps forgetting that he's actually kind of blind without his glasses and not just mildly inconvenienced the way she is, or she's just being mean. Cai would vastly prefer the former, because that means that his admit-no-weakness plan is still at least psychologically in effect.
"Have some cereal or something, okay," Cass yells at him from the shower. "Sorry, I'm still broke, there are like three things in my cupboard. We could go out to Subway or whatever if you want."
"Cereal is fine," Cai calls back at her. Cass keeps trying to get him to eat at fast-food places, not in a mean poke-the-hipster way like Antony or a mildly concerned, Jesus-Christ-Cai-you-need-fattening-up way like Marcus, but because she legitimately thinks that cheesy fries are the ambrosia of the gods and can't understand why anyone would willingly turn down the experience of eating them.
Cai rummages through Cass' cupboards and manages to find the ingredients for a bowl of Cheerios after like five minutes. He's just trying to balance everything on the tiny kitchen table when Cass reappears, her hair in a towel and the rest of her in a blue dress that probably makes her look like she put a lot more effort into dressing than she actually did. Cai, who just threw on his Arcade Fire t-shirt and skinny jeans from last night because he had no other choice, thinks that it kinda works.
"You need a bigger kitchen," he tells Cass through a mouthful of Cheerios as she squeezes past him to the stool on the other side of the table. "You need a bigger apartment, actually."
Cass perches on the stool with her feet up on the crossbar and rolls her eyes. "No shit. Like I've never, ever heard that before." She reaches over to grab a handful of cereal straight from the box. "No, seriously, I am like the caricature of the starving actress who's gonna be waiting tables for the next century. Having a non-shitty apartment is pretty far down my list of priorities. Like, we've got Roman Conspiracy and we spend money on speakers and shit, right, but then on top of that I have to spend gas money to drive to rehearsal forty-five minutes away and then the asshole director decides we don't even get a stipend. Like playing the Nurse in R&J is gonna set me on the path to equity, haha, nope."
"Mm." Cai holds up a finger. "Speaking of Roman Conspiracy."
"So glad you take an interest in my personal life drama." Cass rolls her eyes again and makes a dismissive gesture which sends about half of her handful of Cheerios spilling onto the floor. "Fuck. Mm. Yeah, it's awful. You owe me bigtime for dragging me onto the Battle committee, this year is a fucking mess. Like, anyone who is in one of the bands? Should not be the guy running Battle of the Bands. It's like common sense, okay. Like, you remember that cute little brother-and-sister doo-wop duo -- Mario and Flavia or something? Julian got them booted. He said they broke like Rule 357 of the handbook or something, but it was really because he spent, like, I dunno, a hundred bucks on posters for The Laurels and the kids were taking them down. I'm telling you, this guy is a fucking tyrant."
Cai says nothing for so long that Cass snaps her fingers in front of his face. "Cai? Earth to Cai Kinsell, come in please!"
"Yeah, I know," Cai says quietly. "Cass, would you be down with doing something maybe a little not legal? I mean, not provably illegal, but... not legal."
"Depeeeends," Cass drawls. "Does it have to do with... taking Julian down?"
Cai eyes her and is silent.
"Dude," Cass Rohmann says. "Fuck yes I'm down for that."
2.
It's 4:08 in the morning and there's no good reason that Antony can possibly think of for his phone to be ringing.
He rolls over, tries unsuccessfully to rub his massive hangover out of his eyes, and unlocks his phone clumsily. "Hello? Antony Marks?"
"Tony," the woman on the other end of the line says breathlessly, "it happened again. We were at a bar and it happened again. I can't deal with this, we're at the ER and he's not conscious, can you please come?"
"Cal?" Antony mumbles. "Cal, is that you? What's going on?"
"It's Julian," Carolyn says, and Antony is already out of bed trying to pull on his pants by the time she's finished the last syllable. "I keep telling him he can't go to bars with the lights and the music, he can't drink with the Lamictal but he won't listen to me and the lights–"
"Cal," Antony says again. His car keys are in his wallet, okay, he's totally sober enough to drive, he's got this. He flicks on the light and quickly decides that was not a good idea, flicks it off again and stumbles to the kitchen in the dark. "Tell me what happened."
Cal takes a deep breath. Her voice is shaky and staticky on the other end of the line. "He had another grand mal," she says, "and he hit his head on the floor. I think they said he has a concussion and he bit through his tongue again. God, Antony, why does he–"
"Everyone's gotta have a little fun once in a while, Cal," Antony says, but he's struggling to keep his hands from shaking as he opens the door to the garage and gropes for the handle of the Chrysler. Julian Kingston, mid-level lawyer by day and photosensitive epileptic who thinks it's a great idea to play in a band and hang out at bars by night. God, how did Antony end up as the guy in charge of mopping Julian up when he wipes out. Julian's a great guy but he's scary high-maintenance, and Antony–
Antony is actually kind of worried about him, this time around.
Cal keeps babbling distractedly at the other end of the line, something about disco balls and a girl named Cleo who Julian was trying to impress and Julian's damn sunglasses that he won’t just keep on, and Antony is only half-listening as he roars through a couple red lights in a row. Cal is sweet and not dumb and really, really hot but she's too shy for Julian to use as the trophy girlfriend he wants, and Antony actually feels bad for her. She's stayed with Julian for years even though he ignores her most of the time and flirts other girls right in front of her. Julian pretty much thinks he's entitled to anything he wants, and that's like half the reason Antony hangs out with him, because everybody loves Julian and that trickles down to Antony too. But the other reason... well, Antony had known Julian for about a year before Julian finally bothered to tell him hey, dude, I have epilepsy, and that was after an hour that Antony had spent freaking the fuck out because his best friend was seizing on the floor and he had no idea what was going on. And that was when Antony decided that Julian needed someone to look out for him. No offense, Cal, but his shrinking-violet girlfriend was not going to cut it.
The lights at the hospital are too bright, red and blue and grating, and they punch something visceral in Antony's chest that freaks him out way more than he wants it to. He's a full-grown guy, he owns a house and a sports car and three sets of weight-lifting equipment, he shouldn't still be reminded of the time when he was thirteen and broke his arm playing falling off a roof every time he goes to the ER. He parks the car not quite over the curb – he hasn't scratched the Chrysler yet, even driving way drunker than he should – and hangs up his cell, then sits in the dark clutching the leather steering wheel too tightly for a moment before pushing himself up out of the car and heading into the ER.
Cal is sitting in the corner of the waiting room in a blue dress which Antony deems borderline between desperate and slutty, and she looks up when he walks in with eyes that are dully hopeful for a split second before they light up.
"Tony!" she calls, and then does a double take. "What are you wearing? Jesus, Antony."
Antony looks down and realizes belatedly that the shirt he grabbed in the dark as he stumbled out the door is a green muscle tee with a sparkly, blushing T-rex on it. Well. There goes his dignity forever.
"Any news?" he asks, sitting down next to Cal. The only other people in the waiting room are a nervous-looking mom and preteen and a sleeping middle-aged drunk guy. Antony feels bad for Cal that she had to wait here by herself at this time of night. He only lives about fifteen minutes away from the hospital, but there's a reason he hasn't ever thought about moving farther away.
Cal shakes her head. "I think they said he was in stable condition," she says quietly, "but the drinks and the meds..."
"Yeah," Antony says. He bumps her arm with his. "Hey. He's Julian. He'll be fine."
"Mm," Cal says, and sighs. Antony rubs his eyes again and wishes he'd had time to grab sunglasses or Advil. He has a massive headache coming and he's only gotten about three hours of sleep. He and Tavy are supposed to be the party dudes in this circle of friends, Julian is getting too old to be staying out late. Okay, fine, the guy is only like two years older than Antony, but still.
The TV in the corner of the room drones on with its usual late-night reports of murders and missing children, and Antony wishes he could relax enough to go back to sleep. It must be an hour later when a weary nurse appears from somewhere and says "Julian Kingston's family?"
Antony raises a tired hand. "That's us." It's a lie but it's routine and nobody ever argues with Antony Marks when he's wearing a muscle tee. He may look like a douche, but he's a hot and coherent douche and that's enough to let him BS his way through most things.
The nurse looks him and Cal up and down and nods, tight-lipped. She's not very pretty. "This way, please."
They follow her silently down the antiseptic maze of hospital corridors and end up in a room where Julian is lying on one of those scary high beds, apparently unconscious. There's a nasty-looking bruise across half of his face, and his closed eyes look dark and sunken. Antony sucks in a deep breath.
"Is he as bad as he looks?" he asks the nurse. From the bed, Julian turns his head, eyes still closed.
"I'm fine," he grates. "Antony? Is that you?"
"Yeah," Antony says. "Julian, dude. Cal and I were really worried about you this time. How do you feel?"
Julian laughs weakly. "I'm fine," he says. "I'm going to beat this, Antony. I can't let my illness control me, I'm not sick. I can do whatever I want."
Antony and Cal exchange glances. "Uh, bro, you're in the hospital with a concussion and stitches in your tongue," Antony says. "I don't think you can just ignore epilepsy and make it go away."
"I'm bigger than this," Julian slurs. "I look danger in the face and it looks away first."
"Julian, you can't fight gravity," Antony sighs. He turns to the nurse. "He's not lucid, is he."
"His concussion is moderate," the nurse says. "He's likely to be more coherent in the morning, but we are keeping him here at least overnight. You two can stay if you like, but we recommend in cases like this that family members go home and get some sleep. There is a low risk of further complications at this point. When Mr. Kingston is released we will have to speak to him about alcohol usage in the future, his medication prohibits it and his records indicate that this is not the first time he's had epileptic episodes complicated by alcohol."
"Thank you," Cal says quietly. "We know."
"I'm a lion," Julian insists from the hospital bed.
"Okay, Julian," Antony says, and puts a hand on Cal's shoulder. "Come on, Cal. We don't need to be here. We can deal with this guy in the morning. Or later in the morning, I guess."
***
"I can't do it," Cal says over and over again, curled up in the passenger seat of the Chrysler as they watch the pre-dawn light spreading over the trees and the concrete. Her dress displays way too big a ratio of cleavage to actual breast and she hunches over in it like she doesn't even care, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I can't, Tony. He's a cheater and a dick and he's so full of himself and I don't know why I'm even here."
"Come on, Cal," Antony says. "He's not a bad guy. Don't be like that."
"Are you kidding?" Cal laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Do you know why this happened tonight? He was flirting with some chick named Cleo at the bar and he wanted to impress her, so he kept ordering drinks for both of them and he wouldn't stop and then on top of that he decided he was going to take off his sunglasses. Well, I guess seeing him biting his own tongue off on the floor was probably a big turnoff for her." She cuts the words off sharp and bitter.
"Was she hot though?" Antony asks. Cal glares daggers at him. "Just asking," he says. "Sorry, Cal. Look, it's what guys do, okay. You can't expect someone like Julian to never look at the other fish in the sea. He's rich and hot and in a band, of course he's going to attract other girls. At least he's not mean to you."
Cal buries her face in her hands, groans, and shakes her head in jerky, desperate movements. Antony feels bad for her, he really does, but he's too tired to deal with all of this too right now.
"Look, it's like six in the morning," he says. "You want to go home?"
"Yeah," Cal sighs. "Yeah. Okay."
3.
That one guy is working the espresso machine again and Tomás thinks he would gladly spend the rest of his life here at Pompey's Porch waiting for his order to arrive. Because, 1. he is determined to spend this morning procrastinating on working on his senior project one way or another, and 2. this guy is like the cutest thing Tomás has ever set eyes on. When Cai – Tomás thinks his name is Cai, his nametag says so anyway – takes his order, Tomás loses proper control over his tongue every single time. And speaking of tongues–
Ahem. Okay.
They've exchanged like two words that weren't about coffee. Cai is apparently in a band. He invited Tomás to one of their gigs last week, unusually verbosely, and Tomás almost had a heart attack for like five seconds before he realized that the guy was apparently inviting everyone in line. He doesn't stop for too long to think about what this means. It's Cai's band, of course it will be good.
Tomás thinks occasionally that he needs to make some more friends. It's been... different, since he started looking at the world from behind a camera lens. He likes it, he loves photography and film, but seeing everything through that view means that things start taking on a cast of unreality after a while. Some days, Tomás feels as if the whole world is a movie that he's in charge of filming instead of acting in. He wishes he could start acting again, but the barrier of the camera has made him too shy.
He thinks Cai might know what that feels like. Fine, okay, Tomás will admit it, he has a stupid stalker crush who he doesn't actually know anything about, but... Tomás watches people as part of the career he hopes he might have one day, and he's noticed that Cai does the same. The other baristas chat and laugh amongst themselves; Cai joins in with what's probably a bitingly snarky comment once in a while but is for the most part quiet and self-absorbed. Tomás thinks they could have a lot to talk about, if he ever actually got up the courage to ask the guy out. Which he probably won't.
He can invite Phoenix and Luke to the gig, probably -- the band is called Roman Conspiracy, according to the slip of paper Cai gave him which is still in his pocket. Tomás thinks that's cute. Luke will make fun of him about Cai, because Luke thinks he's everyone's older brother, but Tomás can deal. He doesn't rely on Luke and what Luke thinks as much as he used to.
He doesn't really like this, this slow tectonic drift of friendship fading. He doesn't know what he's going to do once he's out of college. Two years ago he thought he would get an apartment downtown and hang out with the artsy crowd, but now he's not sure he'll fit in with them either.
He really just wishes Cai would smile at him. But Cai doesn't smile at anyone.
4.
(2012)
The kid playing guitar on the sidewalk outside the antique shop is actually really good. Marcus drops a dollar in his hat the first time he and Portia walk by, and when they pass the kid again an hour and a half later on the way back to their car, Marcus nudges Portia so they can stop and listen.
It's unseasonably warm for December in Washington, the temperature hovering just below freezing, and downtown Republic is swarming with people doing their last-minute Christmas shopping. There's a feeling of half-embarrassed relief in the air --hey, it's December 23rd, two-K-one-two, and they're all still alive. Nobody really believed all that apocalypse crap, but... it's nice to know anyway.
The kid with the guitar looks barely fifteen, even bundled up in his too-big sweatshirt, but he's crooning away in a barely-pubescent tenalto as if he's at a music festival and not sitting on the sidewalk on a piece of dirty cardboard. The first time they walked by he was playing an acoustic'd-up version of some generic Christmas carol, but now he's finishing up a bouncy, strumming tune that Marcus doesn't recognize but finds himself tapping a foot along with.
Marcus waits until the kid has finished the last chord of the song and is taking a swig from his water bottle, and then asks, "Did you write that? It's good."
The kid looks up, surprised. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Thanks so much." He's got big dark eyes and a shaggy mop of hair with a sprinkling of snow melting in it, and he's almost certainly too young to be out on the streets right now.
"Are you in a band?" Marcus asks casually, vague thoughts in his head of introducing this kid to Cai. The kid shrugs.
"Nah. I go to music school, but I'm on break right now. I want to maybe go on tour once I graduate." His non-singing voice is tired and gravelly to the point where Marcus wonders whether he's doing it intentionally, and Marcus is tired from shopping and dinner but the last thing in the world he wants to do now is walk away from this kid in the snow.
"You're in college?" Portia breaks in, shocked, and the kid's face immediately shuts down. "Yeah. I'm street legal, okay, don't try to--"
"No, kid," Portia sighs. Marcus is so glad she's a teacher, because she has way more experience with teens than he does and she also does the non-scary friendly thing way better than him. Okay, Marcus gets already it, he's tall and dark and wears regular poofy winter coats instead of metrosexual wool things and people who first meet him can't all be expected to know that he is the literal personification of a very large puppy, For all that Portia is solid muscle under her curves and could lay him or anyone else out on the floor in about half a second, she comes across as less intimidating than he does to... well, theoretically racists, but mostly everyone. "I just meant you look young," Portia says. "It's cool. You're really talented."
The kid laughs ruefully and runs a hand through his wet hair, leaning back against the awning support he's playing by. "Yeah, I get that a lot. A– about my age, I mean. Thanks."
"Sure." Portia leans against the wall and exchanges a glance with Marcus. He's pretty sure she's thinking exactly the same thing he is. "So you're on school break?" she asks.
The kid pushes his hair out of his eyes again. "Yeah. Just trying to make some cash for... you know."
Portia glances at Marcus again, and he knows she's started down a track for which there will be follow-through. Which, good, because that was the idea. Marcus is cold even in a winter jacket and he hates seeing kids on the street, and he has a weird feeling about this one.
"You going somewhere for Christmas?" Portia asks casually, and the kid's face shuts down again. "Uh, yeah. My... aunt's."
"Hm." Portia shrugs. "Well, if that falls through, you could always come join us. I mean, I'm nominally Jewish and Marcus isn't really anything but we generally have a couple friends over and watch sappy movies and eat nachos. Just, you know, hang out away from the cold for a while." She flashes her best smile at the kid, the one which dazzles everyone she meets – Portia is good at making friends – and holds out her hand to shake. "Portia Catona. This is Marcus."
The kid shakes her hand a little tentatively. "Lucas. Uh, that's nice of you, but I... I think I'm good. Wait, you're Jewish?"
"Mmhmm, Costa Ricans can be Jewish too," Portia says absently, digging in her bag for something which turns out to be a scrap of paper and a pen. Jesus, you would think she does stuff like this every day. "I mean, ish. Nominal, like I said." She scribbles something down on the paper against the damp awning support and hands it to the kid. "If you change your mind, that's my number. And if your... aunt... falls through, call me, okay? It's supposed to get cold later tonight."
"Oh, I'm -- I'm not homeless," the kid says quickly. But he tucks Portia's phone number away in the pocket of his sweatshirt.
"Seriously, call me," Portia says, making the cell-phone gesture with her hand by her ear. "Nice to meet you, Lucas. Good luck with the rest of your day."
"You think he will?" Marcus asks her as they walk away. "Call, I mean."
Portia shrugs. "I don't know. God, he looks so young. I don't get it."
Marcus nudges her shoulder with his. "We'll come back tomorrow and check on him, okay? I don't like it either."
"Okay," Portia says, and loops her arm around his, rubbing her chin against his arm. Hey, it's almost Christmas and they're adults and they're still alive. "Sounds good."
5.
Leo is somehow playing with the Laurels – again, again, how much it is even possible to hate being a hired drummer because Leo is probably the example at the top end of the scale – and he hates his entire life. Literally all he wants to do right now is finish this stupid rehearsal so he can go home and text his girlfriend and eat Cheetos and possibly jerk off, but instead he's stuck here in rich-douchebag-Julian-Kingston’s unreasonably large basement watching the three actual members of the Laurels engage in their own metaphorical circle-jerk. He should have just gotten a job at Six Flags this summer again, he thinks. At least there he got free ice cream and turns at the kissing booth.
Marks and Kingston and Kingston's younger brother – whose name is Octavian or some such shit, seriously, how pretentious were these guys' parents – are having an argument about the outfit that Octavian brought to rehearsal and apparently wants to wear in their show for Battle of the Bands.
(Which, by the way, no. Leo loathes Battle. He once drank two entire cans of Red Bull to prep for Battle and ended up playing everything twice as fast as he was supposed to and then throwing up on the audience. Leo is traumatized forever by Battle of the Bands, thank you very much for asking.)
Even Leo has to agree that Octavian's outfit is pretty fugly, though. Like, yeah, the Laurels is an eighties metal cover band, fugly costumes are more or less the status quo, but Octavian's costume is orange and pleather and has fake graffiti on it. Marks and Kingston the elder, who are respectable people during the day and have some dignity to protect, are all but banging their heads against the wall at this point. Leo wonders if he should join in.
“Tavy,” Kingston the elder is saying, “we have a tour lined up after this. We are going to be a big thing, and that means that we have to have some kind of modern aesthetic value, and that means throw that damn costume in the trash.”
“Dude, it’s totally eighties,” Octavian protests. Marks looks like he wants to smash his keyboard over the kid’s head, and Leo doesn’t blame him. Kingston and Marks actually aren’t bad at the music, even if they’re huge dicks, and they don’t quite deserve to have to deal with Octavian’s level of dickery and incompetence.
“Tavy, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the eighties ended about thirty-five years ago,” Marks says, sounding like he’s trying really hard to stay civil, and Leo raises a drumstick in agreement. “Dude. Yeah.”
Everyone looks at him like they’ve completely forgotten he’s even in the room, and there’s a moment of awkward silence. Kingston lowers his sunglasses – seriously, who wears sunglasses in their own basement, what an asshole – and stares at him.
“Thank you for the support, Leo,” he says, “but I think we’re done with rehearsal. You can go.”
Leo tries to restrain himself from shouting in joy, and instead nods enthusiastically for several seconds too long and starts packing up his stuff.
“It’s just a little overboard, Tavy,” Kingston says in the background, but Leo is only about half-listening. He shoulders his backpack and tries to slip out the door unnoticed, but Octavian gives him a bro-wave on the way out. Octavian seems to actually like him, just Leo's luck.
“Bye, Leo,” Octavian says, and then turns back to Kingston. “I’ll quit,” he says warningly. “I will quit.”
“Yeah? Feel free. I can always get Dallas to come replace you,” Kingston retorts, and Octavian scoffs, "Mister Acoustic Guitar? Nah, man, he's staying with Roman Conspiracy. You better–“
But Leo neither knows nor cares what Kingston had better, because he's already out of there. Fucking band politics. He'll take the fame, but the backstage drama stuff is just shit. Nah, he's happy to stay on drums.
6.
The marble countertop in Marcus and Portia's kitchen smells vaguely like melon and garlic scapes. Cai sits cross-legged on it, his back against a cupboard and a glass of wine that he's forgotten the number and name of in one hand, and stares blankly off into the dark as the TV blares unintelligibly in the other room.
He's not sure why he's even here, honestly. He finds himself gravitating to Marcus' place a lot after work lately, and Marcus is kind of the hub of everything in their friend group so there are a lot of other people who wander in and out. But then there's the stupid soccer games and Cai should probably just go home but, god, he's too drunk to drive and his tiny apartment will feel suffocating and lonely after this.
There's a noise in the doorway and he looks around briefly, expecting maybe Carolyn or Lucas. It turns out to be Portia, wide curls framing the dark silhouette of her head, carrying a couple dishes which she dumps in the sink. She doesn't seem to see Cai until he shifts on the counter, and then she jumps, her whole skin twitching like a nervous cat. "Cai? What the hell are you doing on my counter in the dark?"
"Drinking?" Cai offers. Portia groans.
"Cai," she says, but gently. She wanders over and hoists herself backwards up onto the counter next to him, feet dangling over the edge. She smells like clean sweat. Cai is always a little in awe of Portia, all brown well-muscled thighs and self-assurance and real responsibility, and right now he feels small and a little pathetic next to her with his wine.
"Sports, huh," she says, not terribly enthusiastically.
"Sports," Cai agrees.
They sit in silence for a minute. Portia takes Cai's wine glass and sips at it, then hands it back to him. "Classy," she comments.
"Yeah, aren't I?"
"Mmm," Portia says. She bumps Cai's shoulder with hers gently. "So how's your summer going? Cass okay?"
"We're -- we're not a thing," Cai says for probably the forty-seventh time.
"Right," Portia agrees. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Cai says. "She's fine. She's in a show."
"Hey, Cai?" Portia says, taking his wine glass for a minute again.
"Yeah?"
"Someone keeps throwing mixtapes in our windows. Like a lot of mixtapes. I keep finding them in the morning. They look good but I don't even have a tape deck to listen to them on -- I feel kind of bad, because it looks like someone put a lot of effort into them. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
"Uh, no," Cai says, and he's very glad that he can't see Portia's face in the dark, because it means she can't see his either. "That's a really strange thing to do. Huh."
Strange silence descends between them again. Cai tucks his knees up under his chin and listens to the TV. Antony and Marcus shout something triumphantly from the couch in the living room and Cai is not very happy about the fact that he's so attuned to Marcus' voice.
"Cai," Portia says. Cai jumps guiltily.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing. Hey." Portia nudges him with her shoulder again. He can't see her face in the darkness, no, but from her voice he would guess it is soft and concerned. "Hey, you know we're all still here, okay?"
"Yeah," Cai says quietly. He thinks about maybe crying on Portia's shoulder but instead just lets her take his hand and hold it in the dark, sitting close enough that their hips and arms brush. There's light and noise outside the kitchen, but they sit in silence here and let their heartbeats and the scents of melon and wine fill the room.
7.
Marcus doesn't find out about Sam Trenton for a while, and in hindsight that's sort of strange.
This is how it happens. When Lucas was a tiny college freshman without a binder to his name, playing guitar on the street during Christmas break because he had nowhere else to go anymore, and Marcus and Portia dragged him in out of the cold to spend Christmas with them because they had no idea who he was but he looked about fourteen and neither of them believed he was street legal, it didn't occur to any of them that Lucas was going to become their kid just a little. But when Lucas ended up staying for the rest of school break, and when Marcus found his school ID that said Erika Trenton instead of Lucas and pieced some things together, and when Portia gave Lucas her email and invited him over again for spring break, things got solid and big very suddenly. Lucas stays with them in the summers now and works on his compositional resume and none of their friends question it, and Marcus had pretty much gotten used to him and Portia being the place – maybe the only place – that Lucas had to go. Marcus doesn't think that he and Portia are ready to have kids yet, but he is very, very happy that they have Lucas.
And then, after almost a year and a half of this, Marcus overhears Lucas talking on the phone with someone and it turns out that Lucas Trenton has a brother. In China.
"He's a teacher," Lucas says defensively when Marcus asks him about it, or rather – probably more aggressively than he should – confronts him about it. "He has a two-year contract and he didn't know what was going on with my parents until after I'd already met you and Portia. It's not his fault."
"Lucas," Marcus sighs, sitting down on Lucas' messy bed in the guest room, "I guess it's none of my business, but if your brother is okay with you being trans, which it sounds like he is, then.... why did he not object to you being kicked out on the streets?"
Lucas groans and runs a hand through his hair, then flips his cell phone from hand to hand. "Like I said. He didn't know. He didn't find out from my parents what was going on until like February, and I... I dunno, I didn't really want to tell him after what happened with Mom and Dad. But he called me in the winter and we're cool."
"And now he's coming back here," Marcus says quietly. God, this kid. He feels... jealous? Protective? Angry at this anonymous Sam guy for not taking care of Lucas when Lucas needed him. And he knows that's horrible, because Lucas has several good points, but...
He's afraid, he thinks. Afraid that Sam Trenton is going to take Lucas away from him.
And that's stupid, because Lucas is almost twenty at this point and it's not like he's in anyone's legal custody. He stays with Marcus and Portia because he can't really afford his own place and, more importantly, because he likes Marcus and Portia, and that's not going to go away just because he has actual relatives again.
But Sam is arriving on Monday, and god, if Lucas knew this was coming he should have told Marcus first. Marcus always, always, always tries to assume the best of people, but in exchange he expects that people are going to use the same code of honor for him that he uses for them and Lucas kind of just violated that.
"Look, Marcus, I'm sorry," Lucas says, spreading his hands out helplessly in front of him. "I didn't really know what was going on, okay? It's been hard to get in touch with him, his teaching hours are weird, and he wasn't even sure he was going to come back to Republic. He just found out he got a job here for the fall like two days ago."
"Okay," Marcus sighs. "Okay." He wanders away into the kitchen where Portia is cutting watermelon into chunks – the days are finally, finally getting hot, the spring was way too cold for way too long – and leans against the marble countertop to watch her. He has a feeling that in this case it will be better to wait until she's put the knife down to tell her about this newest piece of weird drama in their lives.
Portia, as it turns out, is even more pissed than Marcus was. Portia has slightly better boundaries around Lucas being not-actually-their-kid, though, so this mostly manifests in her very carefully not yelling at Lucas and then, that evening, throwing cushions at the wall of their bedroom and snarling half-finished sentences such as "I can't believe he–“ and "What kind of a grown man would just–“ until Marcus can calm her down.
They just have to wait and see what happens. That's all that they can do.
They drive with Lucas to the Spokane airport on Monday morning because he says he told Sam about them a long time ago (yet another thing that makes Marcus feel incredibly betrayed) and asks them to come. They park by the baggage claim and wait inside. Lucas looks incredibly nervous, but then, Marcus and Portia probably look incredibly nervous too.
Marcus wasn't sure what he was expecting from Sam; a taller version of Lucas, maybe, all skinny limbs and dark floppy hair and nervous energy. Whatever it was, Sam in reality is absolutely nothing like. When Lucas spots his brother across the baggage carousel and wanders sidelong over to greet him, Marcus doesn't know for a minute who he's even aiming for.
Sam Trenton turns out to be stocky, sandy-haired, quietly polite, and a good ten years older than Lucas. After he's spent a good couple of minutes hugging Lucas and commenting on how different he looks, he shakes Marcus and Portia's hands firmly and murmurs "It's so good to meet you, Lucas has told me so much about you two. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am to you for taking care of him." Marcus and Portia exchange stunned glances that say Uh, I think it's impossible not to like this man.
"Yes, well, we haven't heard much about you until recently," Portia says, but what could have been a barbed comment is instead laughing and half-embarrassed. "I understand you're a teacher."
"Yes, English and ESL," Sam says, and then holds up a finger, looking past Portia. "Just a moment." He ducks over to the baggage carousel to grab a pair of large black suitcases and tows them back over to the little group. "Sorry. Lucas tells me you're a teacher too – social studies, right?"
"Just started a couple years ago, but yeah." Portia nods. Sam grins completely genuinely. "Great! We have to talk. I just want to catch up with my brother here first."
Marcus and Portia take a suitcase apiece from Sam despite his protests, and walk ahead to the car while Lucas and Sam trail behind, chatting and laughing. Portia leans against the trunk of the car and lets her head bang back onto the metal. "Fuck," she says. "He's nice. Now I feel awful."
"Yep," Marcus agrees. "We need to re-evaluate."
The drive back to Republic is filled with chatter that gets less awkward and more laughter-filled as it goes on. Lucas, sitting in the back next to Sam, looks quietly happier than Marcus has ever seen him before, and Marcus doesn't grudge him that one iota.
Sam's rented an apartment about fifteen minutes out of Republic's downtown, and they drop him and Lucas off with his stuff. Lucas will be back to Marcus and Portia's house later that night, he promises, he just wants to hang out with his brother for a while. At this point, Marcus thinks that is entirely reasonable.
Marcus doesn't find out about Sam Trenton for a while, and in hindsight that's kind of weird but he understands why. And as it turns out, nothing really changes that much. At least, not for the worse.
Sam teaches classic literature at Republic Regional High School and sometimes Lucas stays over at his place. Mostly he lives with Marcus and Portia and it's not a big deal. They have cookouts in Marcus and Portia's backyard and Marcus thinks about reunions with his own family, who are more scattered than he ever wanted them to be. He should call June, he thinks, sometime.
But for now, there's Portia and Lucas and Sam, and Cai and Dallas and Julian and Martín, and Marcus doesn't think he lacks a family. He might not be sure where they're all going from here, but for now? For now, it's enough.