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Thomas considered the cutting board before them. White plastic, with the kind of discoloration that comes from using a thing a lot but also taking good care of it. A distinct lack of orange stains from years of carrot sticks or spilled spaghetti sauce.
To his right, Scott glanced at him before picking another potato out of the bowl and placing it on the cutting board. He sliced it in half, then laid the flat sides down on the bowl and sliced them in half again. Then he cut each of those thinner pieces into three before moving all the now more-or-less same size pieces into a different bowl.
Then he did it again.
It was a truth universally understood that it couldn’t be a neighborhood party without potato salad. Even if the party had been pushed inside because there was definitely going to be rain before it was time to eat.
Pursing his lips, Thomas came to a decision. “Why didn’t we just buy smaller potatoes? Then we wouldn’t have to cut them up after they were cooked.”
“We didn’t buy anything,” Scott said, “and in case your mom’s around, we are not cutting up anything. Kip’s dad bought the potatoes and I am the only man in this kitchen using a knife.”
“You’re the only man in this kitchen,” Thomas pointed out. When Scott raised an eyebrow at the declaration, Thomas raised both of his back. “I still count as a boy.”
“Most boys like to be called men.”
“Men have to pay taxes. Boys just have to take out the trash.”
“Flawless logic,” came a new voice from behind them. Appearing on Scott’s other side, Eric grinned in that way friends did when they were sharing a joke. “Clearly where we both went wrong.”
“There’s an argument that you take out the trash every game,” Scott said, and Thomas felt himself smile at the pride in Scott’s voice. It was good to know Kip’s boyfriend cared so much about his friends.
Eric was holding a bunch of empty beer bottles, even though he didn’t drink beer, and looking around for the recycling bin. Once he spotted the blue plastic, he set the bottle in instead of dropping them. “Are we speaking in generalities, or are you still gloating over Boston’s defeat?”
“Can’t even call it a loss,” Scott said, grinning like Mrs. Nakatomi’s cat. “Not with a game played that badly.”
“I’m sure Rozanov had some choice words for his team, too.”
“I know he’s determined to make us all think he’s an a -” Scott stopped, looked at Thomas, and changed his word. “An enormous jerk, but I think he might actually be a decent guy.”
“Under all that bluster?”
“Under his uncontrollable need to be a pain in my butt.”
Thomas snorted, more at the obvious choice of non-curse word, but he let the adults think he was laughing because they’d said ‘butt’.
Scott gave him a pleased grin as Eric leaned against the kitchen counter. “He is a deeply annoying hockey player, we can agree on that.”
“Almost as annoying as Hollander.”
“Hollander is in-humanly good at the game, but he’s a nice guy. Man never even chirps.”
“Yeah,” Eric said, “and the one time he did, you punched him in the face.”
Eric had said it as a joke, but Scott didn’t laugh. Instead, his smile disappeared and he looked like his insides were hurting him. “That…I shouldn’t have done that. That fight was my fault.”
“I seem to remember Hollander starting it,” Eric said, no longer amused. He seemed…thoughtful.
“He did,” Scott agreed, pretending to distract himself by picking up another potato, “but I overreacted to a perfectly good chirp, and that’s on me.”
Eric watched Scott as his friend cut up the potato. Thinking. When Scott was done, he asked, “What kind of chirp makes Scott Hunter lose his temper?”
“An ill-timed one,” Scott said, moving the potato pieces to the second bowl. “Rozanov kicked our ass the night before, then Sweetheart Shane Hollander decided to chirp after beating us the next damn night.”
“Bad timing on his part.”
“He didn’t chirp because Boston beat us.”
Eric was still watching his friend. Mrs. Nakatomi’s cat when it couldn’t decide if the prey was going to come out of hiding. “Do you remember what he said to you?”
Scott picked up another potato. “Yes.”
“Will you tell me what it was?”
“He told me to show the hell up the next game.”
“How very Rozanov of him.”
Scott winced. “Yeah.”
“And on the heels of Boston.”
“Yeah.”
“I would have punched the guy, too.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Eric shrugged. “Fight still makes more sense.”
Thomas stayed quiet while the two men talked. He had the feeling that Scott wasn’t telling the whole truth, but he also felt like Scott didn’t want to. Like maybe either he or Hollander had said something else, and that was the real reason somebody got punched.
“You should tell Rozanov,” Eric said, and his grin was finally back. “He chirps you all the time, you’ve never swung on him.”
“Or we can crush his team again next time we play,” Scott said, his voice a little growly at the idea of beating Boston yet again, happy to change the subject. “Pain fades, chicks dig scars, but glory lasts forever.”
“Good thing you don’t have any scars.”
“Only the ones on his heart,” Thomas murmured, remembering something his cousin had read in a book the last time he’d been dumb enough to ask for her help with his homework. Noticing the two men staring at him, he frowned. “What?”
“He’s really like that, huh?” Eric asked.
Scott nodded. “Every damn time.” Finishing the last of the potatoes, Scott picked up the knife and the cutting board and moved to set them in the sink. While he did that, Thomas hopped off the chair he’d been kneeling on and grabbed the mayo from the ‘fridge. He climbed back on the chair and set the jar on the counter while Scott started opening drawers, looking for a big spoon.
Eric watched him for most of a minute before deciding to be helpful. “How many times have you been in this kitchen and you don’t know where stuff is?”
“I barely know where stuff is in my kitchen.”
“Pretty sure it’s Kip’s kitchen these days.” Pointing to a weird looking picture near the sink, Eric added. “Spatula.”
“The instructions say spoon.”
“The instructions are wrong.”
“How would you know.”
“I am older and wiser and of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s actually made potato salad before.”
Scott shot his friend a look that probably would have come with a bad word if Thomas hadn’t been in the room. “Fine.”
Picking a spatula out of the pitcher, Scott came back over to the counter and started measuring stuff into the bowl with the cut up potatoes. Salt. Pepper. Dried herbs. Mayo. Mustard.
“Interesting order,” Eric said, in that way Thomas’ dad always referred to as “dry”.
“Literally no one asked you,” Scott said. Finding the table spoons much more quickly, he held one out to Eric. “Taste this?”
Eric considered the bowl. “No bacon this time?”
“What kind of godless heathen puts bacon in potato salad?”
“I hear it’s very popular.”
“You don’t eat bacon?” Thomas asked as Eric spooned out a tiny amount.
“Eric doesn’t eat any kind of meat,” Scott said.
“Not even taco meat?”
Scott smiled. “Not even.”
Maybe Eric was a godless heathen. Whatever that was.
“I don’t eat meat,” Eric confirmed, “but I do eat tacos.”
Thomas knew his nose was scrunched up as he thought about how that could possibly work. Tomato, onion, and cheese tacos sounded gross. And while he thought about bad tacos, Eric considered the bite of potato salad.
“Needs more salt.”
“Really?”
“Potatoes are notorious lovers of salt.”
“Rozanov must be a potato. He’s salty as they come.”
“There’s a vodka joke in there somewhere.”
As the two men debated just how much more salt the potatoes needed, Thomas caught somebody moving near the door. Turning his head just a little, he watched as Kip leaned against the doorway. He was watching Scott and smiling in that way Thomas’ mother sometimes did when his father wasn’t looking.
When Thomas opened his mouth to say something, Kip held a finger to his lips, so Thomas thought of something else to say. “Bacon’s salty. You could add that.”
“Then Eric couldn’t eat it,” Scott said.
“And Scotty would have to learn to cook bacon,” Eric added.
“I can cook bacon.”
“You can microwave the precooked stuff.”
“I am not that bad, Bennett.”
“You have your moments, Hunter.”
Scott snorted and very nearly dumped the entire container of salt into the potato salad. “See if I make you a milkshake ever again.”
“We can’t eat that much sugar until July anyway. I have literal months to earn your forgiveness.”
Suddenly, salty potatoes sounded way less important. “You can’t eat sugar except in July?”
“Hockey players have to pay close attention to what they eat,” Scott said. “Sugar’s not good for you in large amounts, and dairy can bother people, so stuff like ice cream has to be an off-season treat.”
“It tastes better in the summer anyway,” Eric said, and it almost sounded like he was apologizing.
And maybe he should, because Thomas was pretty sure Eric was married, and Scott was for sure dating Kip. Even if they were all still pretending otherwise. Which raised a much more important question. “If you can’t eat ice cream except for July, does that mean Kip can’t eat it anymore, either?”
“Kip can eat whatever he wants,” Scott said. “And quite often does.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Scott turned, matching Kip’s surprised outrage with a wide grin. “That kiss tasted like feta.”
“You’ll live.”
“I know.”
“And it didn’t stop you from kissing me again.”
“It didn’t.”
“So?”
“So Scott’s gotta find something gross to eat before he kisses you,” Thomas said, thinking hard.
What kind of gross things could affect the flavor of a kiss?
“I would not take kissing advice from an elementary schooler,” Eric murmured as Kip laughed and Scott looked unexpectedly worried.
“Um, Thomas -”
“I know!” Pointing at the ceiling like the heroes sometimes did in late night movies, Thomas grinned. “You could find that chocolate chapstick my cousin uses!”
“That sounds significantly worse than feta,” Kip agreed.
“I don’t need to escalate things,” Scott started, but Eric had apparently decided the kitchen was no longer a place all of them needed to be.
“Come along, Thomas.” Stepping around Scott, Eric held out a hand as if Thomas didn’t remember which way the door was. “Let’s go bother other men.”
“I don’t really think we were bothering Scott,” Thomas said, but he slid off his chair anyway.
“I mean, at least one of us was trying,” Eric said. Which might have been convincing if he hadn’t then turned and winked at Scott. “I’ll be we can bother Mr. Wilson, though.”
“Leo’s on that,” Thomas said as he led the way out of the kitchen. “He’s got a long term plan.”
“Oh does he?”
Once they were about halfway down the hall, Thomas stopped and looked up at Eric. “You weren’t really bothering Scott.”
“Not really, no.”
“This is just because adults are weird about kisses in front of kids.”
Eric tilted his head and gave Thomas a look he was very familiar with. “Maybe adults shouldn’t be weird about kisses.”
Thomas shrugged. “I mean, goodbye kisses are fine. But Kip was wearing that dorky smile, and I don’t really like watching those kinds of kisses.”
Eric laughed, clearly a fan of those kinds of kisses, and placed a hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “Well then, we should most definitely go find Leo and his long term plan. I have it on good authority that Scotty is never satisfied with just one of those kisses.”
“Gross,” Thomas muttered, but at least Eric hadn’t said he’d understand when he was older.
Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t, but there were far more important things to learn about in life. Some of them potentially time sensitive, given there was another neighborhood party in a few weeks.
“How do you make tacos if you don’t eat any meat?”