Work Text:
January 18
4:57 PM
It was almost the end of Boomer’s shift at Two Boots. It had been a long day. He was thankful that at this point, the holiday foot traffic that was so ever-present in Manhattan during December had dissipated. And now that school was back in session, he couldn’t take on as many shifts as he had during Christmas break. But he could always count on the pizzeria being rather busy on a Saturday.
Honestly, Boomer felt like he was in a really good place right now. Since he and Dash had cleared everything up between them following the latter’s blowup on Christmas, things seemed to be back to normal between them (well, other than the fact that they both had girlfriends now).
Yeah. It was still sinking in for Boomer that he was with Sofia. But it was going well for them so far. They’d gone on a couple dates since Collation on New Year’s Eve, and even though Sofia was Boomer’s first official girlfriend, he felt like he was handling things well so far. Well, there were worse ways their relationship could be going at this early juncture, Boomer figured.
But it was nice. The new year was just rolling along for him. All of a sudden, he heard a familiar voice.
“Boomer!”
He looked up to see where the voice was coming from. “Yo, Lily!” he exclaimed. “What brings you by?”
“Well, I figured that since we haven’t talked since Christmas-and, well, since the notebook,” Lily explained, “I should pay you a visit. I’d have done it sooner, but it’s just been so busy lately, what with Dash and school starting again and Mom and Dad in Fiji and all that.”
“Well, I’m glad you came by,” Boomer replied. “My shift is almost done, so after that, we can catch up.”
“Great!” Honestly, Lily felt bad about not seeing Boomer for so long (at least, relatively speaking). Besides, for how much she had gotten to know Dash that week before Christmas through the red notebook, she basically knew nothing about Boomer, other than that he was Dash’s best friend and he worked at Two Boots. And Lily wanted to rectify that.
She took a seat at one of the several booths by the window. And it wasn’t long before Boomer popped out from behind the counter, a tray in his hand, laden with a few slices of pizza.
“Hey!” the guy behind the counter called out. “You gonna pay for that, Boomer?”
“Hold on.” Boomer dug through his pocket and fished out 17 dollars in cash. “Here you go, Frank. I believe this should cover it.”
“Thanks,” Frank replied dryly.
Boomer headed over to where Lily was sitting.
“And what is this?” she asked, a bit caught off guard and pleasantly surprised.
“Well, I figured you’d want to order something, since you’re here,” Boomer explained, “so I got this out of the back. It’s a little something I’ve been working on.”
“Oh, yeah!” Lily replied. “Dash told me you were working on your own kind of pizza here.”
“Yeah, so, every month,” continued Boomer, “one of the members of the staff gets to create their own specialty pizza for the menu. January was my turn.”
The pizza had the full spectrum of colors from the Italian flag: red, white, and green.
“Go ahead, go ahead! Try it,” Boomer urged.
Intrigued, Lily took a bite.
“Wow, Boomer,” she remarked. “This is very interesting. What exactly is this?”
Boomer explained, “It’s a four-cheese blend: mozzarella, ricotta, parmo, and provolone, and it’s topped with both tomato sauce and basil pesto.”
“It’s a very nice combo,” commended Lily. “The tomato and basil are a really good pairing, almost like with a Margherita. And the cheese: despite there being four different, unique types of cheese incorporated, they blend very well.”
“Thanks!” Boomer replied. “I like the summary. You could honestly be a food critic some day.”
“Just so long as I don’t have to go through another Lot’s Wife,” joked Lily.
“Anyway,” continued Boomer, “how are you?”
“I’m great! Great,” Lily answered. “Yeah, we got a postcard from Mom and Dad in Fiji. Seems they’re doing well. Benny just got back from visiting his abuelita, so he and Langston have been making up for lost time.”
Boomer looked a bit confused.
“My brother and his boyfriend.”
Boomer nodded in understanding.
“Grandpa and Mrs. Basil E have been spending time working on their relationship. It’s nice to see them actually reach compromise. I mean, they’re siblings; if Langston and I can do it, surely they can, too.”
Boomer was still looking at Lily expectantly.
“Oh! Right,” she realized. “Going back to school has been a bit demoralizing.”
“I hear you there,” Boomer agreed. “I honestly find it ridiculous having to go back, and the teachers are like, ‘Okay, let’s start preparing for midterms.’ Like, what? We just got back. Our school just has a completely wack schedule.”
“Yeesh,” Lily replied. “Admittedly, private school is a bit different with its scheduling. And in case you were wondering, things have been great between me and Dash. At first, it was weird without the notebook. Like, it was so easy just going pen to paper, pouring my thoughts and feelings onto the pages. We’d really established a groove with using the notebook to communicate, and then I went and made it awkward after I first suggested we meet in person.”
“Yeah, Christmas honestly seemed rough,” commented Boomer. “But hey, it’s not your fault, Lily. I was hoping you two would meet at some point. Just…not in the way it wound up being. Ever since Dash had broken up with Sofia, he just seemed stuck in this…endless cycle of monotony. I was simply hoping he could find someone to break him out of it. And then you came along, with your red notebook of dares, and for that one week, Dash looked genuinely happy. In a different way from when he and Sofia were together. It’s like this. You pushed him to break this bubble that he’s spent so much of his life in. You challenged him to do things that he wouldn’t normally try and do. Like steal Santa’s hat at Macy’s.”
Lily burst out laughing. “He what?! So that’s why Uncle Sal had to get a new hat! Well, I did tell Dash he might have to get a bit naughty. Challenge met, I guess.”
“Yeah. The whole thing to earn your name,” Boomer elaborated. “What I’m trying to say, I guess, is in a way, your desire to meet him in person was sort of issuing a challenge to both of you. To take what you had between the covers of that notebook, step way outside of your comfort zones, and meet in person. Okayyy, I’m kinda just rambling now. I’m so sorry, Lily. Back to you.”
“No. It’s fine; I tend to do it, too,” Lily replied. “But you’re right, Boomer. We had come that far through the notebook; we owed it to each other to push the envelope and actually meet. We just didn’t coordinate properly, and it blew up in our faces. But after we spent New Year’s Eve at The Strand, and we’ve actually been able to talk, face-to-face, I thought, ‘What was I worried about? This is great!’ You know how they say that opposites attract?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, it’s almost like we’re Kate Winslet and Jack Black in The Holiday,” Lily elaborated. “Except personality-wise, I’m more like Miles and he’s more like Iris.”
“Severely underrated role by Jack Black,” commented Boomer. “I get you, though.”
“How about you?” Lily wondered. “I hear tell that oddly enough, you and Sofia are now a thing.”
“Well, yeah,” Boomer replied sheepishly.
“What happened to ‘I’m not Sofia’?”
“Admittedly, that was more about Dash,” Boomer explained. “When they were together, they seemed happy, but most of the time, Dash was kinda just Sofia’s lapdog…I believe the term I used to describe him was “a mute Ken doll”. They were in this situation where they got along, but it wasn’t even in the relationship at all. Dash was mostly just “for show”.”
Lily nodded, taking in the information (as well as her share of the pizza). “In case you were wondering,” she picked up, “yes, we have talked about him and Sofia. After the Christmas fiasco, we’re working on being more upfront with each other, especially about past relationships. Well, that’s mostly him. Edgar doesn’t really count.”
“And you’re both being as candid as you can with each other, now that you know who the other is in person?” asked Boomer.
“Yep. We’re trying to be as close to 50/50 as possible, each having a say, respecting boundaries, that sort of thing. But enough about me.” Lily laid her hands on the table, palm side down. “Let’s talk about you and Sofia. What’s it like?” she asked curiously.
“Surprising, for one,” Boomer began. “I didn’t even have any inkling that she was back in town until Christmas Eve. Then we all started hanging out after Dash closed off on Christmas-petty, I know, but in the moment, I was just frustrated with him-and strangely enough…I started seeing what he saw in Sofia. At first, I thought that it was just an automatic response that came from needing others to support me after Dash and I…friend-broke up. But then I realized that nope, I do actually like her. So after we were done helping Dash with getting everything in order for your Strand date, I…asked Sofia if she wanted to go see Collation with me, and she accepted.”
“Awww, that’s so romantic,” Lily chimed. “Real talk, though: have you two kissed yet?” Suddenly, she did a verbal 180 and asked herself, “Who are you and what have you done with Lily?”
“No, we haven’t yet,” Boomer chuckled. “But it’s cool. Dash is honestly happy for me, I’ve been getting some advice from my older brother and sister, and Sofia and I just…match each other’s energy really well. You know the four temperaments?”
“Yep. Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic,” Lily listed back.
“Yeah. Well, I’d say Sofia and I are both sanguine,” Boomer explained. “We’re extroverted, the life of the party, but in different ways: Sofia is a natural social butterfly, and I just have this-this knack of finding things to connect with people over. We have somewhat different tastes, but they’re kinda on the same plane: we love interacting with people.”
“That’s very interesting,” remarked Lily. “Compare that to me and Dash; it’s more of a mix. We’re both more introverted, but I’m what you’d call an extroverted introvert. Oxymoronic, I know. He’s more straightforward and subdued with his tastes, and I’m more bright, flashy, out-of-the-box…but still not great with parties.”
“That’s not what I heard, if that underground Jewish punk show is anything to go by,” noted Boomer.
“It was…different,” commented Lily. “It was like I was in Pamplona, Spain, during the Running of the Bulls. Instead of giving up and letting the bull gore me, I went for it and just embraced the energy of the crowd and the music. But for the most part, I’m still not a party girl.”
“Ah, that’s fair,” Boomer replied. “We all got different takes on them. But yeah, I’m really glad that Dash ended up finding you in, of all places, the J. D. Salinger section of The Strand. Kinda begs the question for me, though.”
Lily sat up, a bit worried about what Boomer was going to ask.
“Now that you two are together, I’m not gonna be…a third wheel or anything for you, am I?”
“What?!” Lily gasped. “Oh, my gosh. No, of course not, Boomer. Heck, if it wasn’t for you, some of the connections that Dash and I made just wouldn’t have happened. Like the, well, sting operation to find out who I was in the first place. Without that, the whole personal-questions-earned-by-dares thing would never have been put in place. And after I forgot to leave the notebook at the club, you were the one who was able to make the connection back to Dash. He never would’ve been able to get to Dyker Heights otherwise. Okay, besides the subway, but you get what I mean. You were willing to help not just Dash, but me as well, make the whole thing work.”
Boomer seemed relieved. But Lily wasn’t done.
“Think of it as this,” she explained, holding up a paper plate that had been stuck to the bottom of the one she used for her pizza, pulling a pen out of the pocket of her coat, and drawing a line. “This line represents my connection to Dash.” She scrawled a D and an L at each end point. “No matter how strong it is, structurally speaking, it’s not very sound.” Then Lily drew two more lines, forming a triangle. This left one angle with nothing next to it. She quickly remedied that by writing in a B. “Your loyalty to Dash as his best friend, as well as your willingness to help me out and give me information independently of him, completes the triangle. So really, Boomer, you’re not a third wheel. You’re the other side of the triangle that is our collective dynamic.”
“Well, damn,” Boomer responded, a grin on his face. “The third side of a triangle. I like that. Thanks, Lily.”
“And I know that I made our relationship sound so technical and businesslike,” Lily continued, “but especially since we don’t have to meet on the DL anymore, I’d like for us to actually hang out more, spend time together, actually as friends.”
“Dude, of course,” Boomer answered. “I’d enjoy that, too.”
“And maybe a double date some time, too?” Lily wondered. “Wow, I really have no filter tonight, don’t I? I guess…I just want to get to know Sofia better. I judged her too quickly before.”
“Probably not right off the bat, but sure, the four of us could swing that at some point,” reasoned Boomer. “You know, Lily, I’m-I’m glad you stopped by.”
“I am, too,” concurred Lily.
It was clear that things had been changing a lot for both Lily and Boomer in the new year (mostly positive). And after what had transpired just before the new year, with the notebook, it also made total sense for them to try and establish a solid friendship.
And why not? January was the perfect month for new opportunities. Like building up friendships.