Archive of Our Own

Ryland Grace was thirty years old.

Scientifically speaking, this was not particularly interesting. Nothing measurable had changed between eleven fifty-nine the night before and twelve o’clock that morning. His cells had not recognized the passing of another decade and reorganized themselves accordingly, his bones had not suddenly become more brittle, and his metabolism, despite everything Rocky had threatened him with over the years, had not shut down overnight.

Ryland had checked. Not intentionally, mostly.

He had woken at six fifty-three because nine months of teaching had trained his body into believing sleeping past seven was a moral failure, despite the fact that the school year had ended the previous Friday and no seventh grader currently required him to explain why throwing a pencil across the room technically counted as a projectile. He opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling, remembered the date, and flexed one knee beneath the sheets like an idiot.

It gave the same faint protest it sometimes did after too many stairs, too much time crouched beside raised beds, or one particularly ambitious bike ride. Nothing new or dramatic, certainly nothing that suggested thirty had arrived overnight and begun dismantling him for parts.

“Good,” Ryland mumbled, though the ceiling offered no congratulations.

His phone did.

Twenty-seven notifications waited on the nightstand, enough that Ryland briefly considered putting the device back down and pretending he had not seen them.

Curiosity won over self-preservation, as it usually did.

His grandmother had texted first, technically at twelve-oh-three, which meant she had either stayed awake specifically to do so or set an alarm. Ryland hoped it was the former, though neither possibility was especially kind to her sleep schedule. The idea of Gloria waking herself up in the middle of the night to type HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY!!! LOVE YOU!!!! with enough exclamation marks to suggest an emergency was both sweet and mildly concerning.

Arthur’s message had arrived at six fifteen.

AG: Happy birthday, kid. Call when you’re awake. Your grandmother’s alarm went off at midnight. She has been awake since five for that call anyway.

That answered that.

Adrian had sent something warm and simple at seven.

AE: Happy birthday. Coffee at ten? My treat.

And immediately beneath it was Rocky.

RE: THIRTY.

Ryland closed his eyes, then opened them again to find six more messages waiting.

RE: Three whole decades.

RE: Somehow.

RE: Despite what can only be described as an adversarial relationship with self-preservation.

RE: Proud of you.

RE: Unfortunately trapped at work today because SOME PEOPLE scheduled a systems test on your birthday.

RE: I assume this was targeted.

Ryland smiled despite himself.

RG: Good morning to you too.

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

RE: Old.

RG: You are literally OLDER than me.

RE: Irrelevant.

RG: Go to work.

RE: Already here.

A photograph followed.

Rocky was wearing safety glasses and pointing at something large and mechanical in the background with the deeply satisfied expression of a man who had found a socially acceptable reason to use power tools before seven in the morning.

Ryland sent him a thumbs-down.

Rocky reacted with a heart.

Then, before Ryland could respond again:

RE: Love you. Will harass you in person later this week.

Something warm settled behind Ryland’s ribs. He typed back an equally sincere, significantly less embarrassing love you too, then stared at the screen for another few seconds.

Thirty.

The number still looked strange. Not bad, exactly. Just heavier somehow, rounded in a way twenty-nine had not been. Twenty-nine could still hide inside his twenties, another year in a decade that had seemed impossibly long when he entered it. Thirty felt like someone had drawn a clean line through time and asked him to look at what sat on either side.

Ryland had never particularly enjoyed being asked to evaluate his own life. There were too many variables.

He pushed the thought aside and called his grandparents.

Gloria answered before the first ring fully finished. “Happy birthday!”

Ryland smiled into his pillow. “Hi, Gram.”

“You’re thirty.”

“So I’ve been informed.”

“Arthur, he sounds tired.”

“He just woke up, Gloria.”

“I did just wake up,” Ryland supplied.

There was some muffled conversation on their end, presumably his grandparents disagreeing over whether seven counted as an unreasonable time to still be lying in bed. Ryland let them. It was familiar. Comforting.

By seven twenty, Gloria had reminded him twice that she remembered when he was small enough to sleep across Arthur’s chest, Arthur had objected to being used as evidence in an emotional argument, and Ryland had promised to come over for dinner Sunday.

Then he got dressed for the garden.

Because turning thirty did not exempt anyone from weeds.

-:-

The school looked wrong without students.

Ryland noticed it every summer, though repetition had never made the feeling less strange. Even weekends during the school year carried some evidence of occupation—custodians in the halls, coaches in the gym, teachers catching up on work, doors opening and voices carrying through quieter corridors. A week into summer, even that background life had thinned out.

The parking lot was mostly empty when Ryland rolled in. No backpacks had been abandoned beside benches, nobody called across the courtyard, and no student had left a sweatshirt somewhere inexplicable only to appear three hours later demanding to know whether Ryland had seen it.

He locked his bike at the garden gate and walked inside.

The fog was starting to burn off, morning sun already touching the tops of the raised beds. The air still held onto some of San Francisco’s usual coolness, enough that Ryland had kept his overshirt on for the ride over, but the garden was already beginning to warm where the light reached it.

It looked good. Not perfect, because perfect would have been wrong.

One of the yarrow plants had leaned dramatically toward the path in the past week since his last visit, apparently overcome by the emotional burden of photosynthesis. A patch of mulch near the second bed had shifted enough to expose dry soil beneath it. Something had been nibbling one of the seaside daisies, though not aggressively enough for Ryland to declare war yet.

Still, the garden was alive, and that was enough.

He unlocked the storage bin near the wall, pulled out his gardening gloves, and knelt beside the first bed. Adrian had helped make the summer schedule before school ended, because leaving twelve seventh graders to coordinate anything through a group chat without adult intervention apparently violated several laws of nature. Families had signed up for weekly watering shifts. Ryland planned to check the garden every Wednesday morning anyway, partly because the kids could not reasonably be expected to notice or take care of every issue and partly because the idea of going an entire summer without knowing what the milkweed was doing felt irresponsible.

Simon had called this hovering.

Ryland had called it stewardship.

Simon had looked at him for a long moment.

Ryland had stopped defending himself after that.

He worked his way through the beds slowly, checking moisture, pulling a handful of weeds from around the base of the buckwheat, retying one loose stem against a support, and making a note in his phone about the seaside daisy leaves. The morning warmed gradually around him, though a cool breeze still wandered through the courtyard often enough to keep the sun comfortable. Damp soil darkened the knees of his jeans.

The rough palms of the gardening gloves caught against stems when he moved too quickly, and somewhere over his shoulder a bee arrived with the sort of loud, committed buzzing that suggested it had somewhere important to be.

Ryland watched it disappear into a cluster of flowers and smiled.

Then he looked down at his hands.

The gloves were already streaked dark with soil, dirt ground into the seams around his fingers and caught along the cuffs. One thumb had a damp spot where he had pressed too hard into the earth.

For reasons he could not entirely explain, Ryland thought about blue nitrile gloves.

Thin, powderless gloves pulled snug over his hands. Clean benches, sterile tools, fluorescent light reflected off stainless steel and glass. Everything controlled as much as possible, contamination something that could be kept out if everyone followed procedure closely enough.

At twenty, Ryland had assumed his thirtieth birthday would happen in a life that looked much more like that. Not literally at a lab bench, probably—he had not been quite pathetic enough to celebrate birthdays at work, though working through one remained plausible—but somewhere in research. Graduate school first. A PhD eventually. Maybe microbiology, something cellular, ecology if the right question caught him hard enough.

His parents had been biologists, and Ryland had grown up surrounded by what they left behind: cracked field guides, old textbooks, photographs, pages covered in handwriting he recognized before he was old enough to understand it. His mother labeled sketches neatly beneath the image. His father wrote questions sideways in the margins when he ran out of room.

Their lives had always been something Ryland reconstructed from objects and other people’s memories. Research had felt like one more thing he might be able to pick up and carry forward.

Dr. Grace.

He had never really questioned the title when he was twenty. His father had been Dr. Grace; his mother, technically Dr. Fraser-Grace, though he had been told she answered to either. For most of Ryland’s life, he had assumed he would eventually earn the title too. Biology came easily enough, and with enough family history behind it, the next step had seemed less like a decision and more like momentum.

Someday, someone would call him Dr. Grace, and it would mean he had arrived where he was supposed to.

Instead, at thirty, he was kneeling in dirt outside a middle school.

Ryland pulled another weed from beside the milkweed, roots coming free with a quiet tearing sound.

The contrast should have hurt more than it did, though sometimes it still did. There were days when he missed the version of himself who might have stayed, not because Ryland secretly wanted to quit teaching and run back to a laboratory, but because he could imagine that life clearly enough to miss it sometimes.

The clean benches. The careful procedures. The questions with answers nobody knew yet. The satisfaction of building a study well enough that the data meant something.

Maybe he would have been good at it.

That was the worst part, or maybe the best

Ryland did not like the idea that teaching had to be what he chose because he had failed at becoming anything else. He could have done research. He knew that. He had been good in labs, good enough that professors had encouraged him toward graduate programs. He had walked away anyway, once he finally admitted that the thought of another decade in academia made something inside him quietly sink.

Ryland looked down at his hands again.

Gardening gloves instead of nitrile.

Dirt on his clothes instead of a pristine lab coat.

Three raised beds instead of a controlled lab space.

He thought of the first flower dissection in October, seventy-four students pulling apart alstroemeria with varying degrees of scientific care. Armando. Plant Club. Lucia’s handwriting. Niko turning every concept into a joke and somehow understanding it anyway. Corbin staying after class long after he could have left. The garden around him.

Twenty-year-old Ryland had wanted to study living things.

Thirty-year-old Ryland spent most of his adult life teaching children how to notice them.

Nobody called him Dr. Grace. Seventy-four seventh graders called him Mr. Grace, usually several hundred times a day. Twenty-year-old Ryland probably would not have understood why that mattered just as much.

Some days, Ryland thought it mattered more.

A breeze moved through the courtyard, stirring the narrow leaves near his knee, and Ryland smiled slightly.

Then his phone buzzed.

AE: I’m at the cafe. If you stand me up on your birthday I will give yours to Rocky.

Ryland checked the time.

9:52.

“Oh, shoot.”

He stood too quickly, almost caught his boot on the edge of the raised bed, recovered with the kind of graceless wobble that would have earned immediate mockery from Rocky, and started gathering his things.

The garden would survive without him for a few days.

Probably.

He gave the milkweed one last suspicious look. “Behave.”

The milkweed remained silent, which was probably wise.

-:-

Adrian had already claimed a small table outside the coffee shop by the time Ryland arrived. They sat beneath a striped awning with one ankle crossed neatly over the opposite knee, sunglasses pushed up into their curls and two cold drinks waiting on the little metal table between the chairs. The day had turned pleasantly warm beneath the late-morning sun, enough that condensation gathered along both cold cups and left dark rings on the metal table.

Ryland parked his bike against the rack and approached with his helmet hanging from one hand. Adrian’s gaze lifted to meet him, then drifted deliberately downward.

Ryland followed it.

There was dirt ground into one knee of his jeans, more dusted over the toes of his shoes, and a streak of soil across his forearm where he had apparently forgotten the limits of his gardening gloves.

“Don’t,” he warned.

Adrian raised their eyes again, expression composed except for the faint pull at one corner of their mouth. “I haven’t said anything.”

“You were about to.”

The corner of Adrian’s mouth lifted a little farther, the look dry and pleased with itself, and Ryland dropped into the chair opposite them.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Simon.”

“I have always been capable of judging you quietly.”

“That’s fair.”

Adrian nudged the second cup toward him. “Happy birthday.”

Ryland picked it up and took a drink. Iced vanilla latte, extra shot. Exactly right. The cold sweetness gave way to the stronger edge of espresso underneath, particularly good after the bike ride and a morning spent kneeling in warming soil.

Across from him, Adrian lifted their own iced tea and took a slow sip, looking entirely satisfied with themself.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

For a while, neither of them said anything. Traffic moved beyond the patio rail in lazy bursts while a bus sighed to a stop half a block away. A small dog in a yellow harness trotted past, the breeze stirred a napkin on the next table, and condensation slid down Ryland’s cup onto his fingers.

He took another drink. When he looked up again, Adrian was watching him over the rim of their tea.

“So.”

“No.”

Their brows lifted, green-grey eyes bright with amusement. “I haven’t asked anything.”

“You were going to ask how thirty feels.”

“I was.”

Ryland sighed and leaned back in the chair. “Like twenty-nine.”

Adrian gave him a solemn little nod that was ruined by the amusement still sitting around their eyes. “Disturbing.”

“With more dirt.”

“I noticed.”

“Garden day.”

“I was hoping you hadn’t taken up recreational excavation.”

Ryland smiled down at his latte.

The silence that followed was easy. That had always been one of the things he liked about Adrian. Rocky filled silence instinctively. If nobody spoke for too long, he found something to say, something to fix, something to argue about, some question he had apparently been saving for exactly that moment. Adrian let quiet sit between people without treating it like a gap that needed to be filled.

It was probably one of the reasons the two of them worked so well together.

Ryland loved to see it.

He took another drink and watched a pigeon investigate a discarded napkin near the curb, pecking at one corner before stepping back as though personally disappointed by what it found.

“I thought I’d be in a lab.”

Adrian’s attention settled fully on him.

Ryland kept looking at the pigeon. “At thirty, I mean. I was thinking about it at the garden.”

They waited.

He ran his thumb over the side of his cup, smearing the condensation into a clear path through the droplets. “Not in a bad way, exactly.”

“Do you miss it?”

The question was gentler than Ryland expected.

The easy answer would have been no. He had made the right choice. He loved teaching. Everything had worked out. None of that was a lie; it just was not the whole truth, and for once Ryland let the complication remain complicated.

“Sometimes.”

Adrian only nodded. No reassurance, no reminder that Ryland was happy now as though that should erase whatever affection remained for the life he had once imagined. Something in his shoulders loosened.

“I think I miss something I never fully had,” he admitted. “Which feels stupid.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I know. Logically.”

“Tragic that feelings haven’t learned logic yet.”

“Very inconvenient.”

A small smile spread across Adrian’s face, softening the otherwise composed line of their mouth. Ryland smiled back before looking down at his latte again.

“I thought I’d follow my parents. Not exactly. I knew I wasn’t them.” He turned the cup slowly between his palms. “But research made sense. They were biologists. I was good at biology. I liked it. It felt like…”

He paused, trying to find the shape of the thought.

“Like there was already a path.”

The teasing left Adrian’s expression. Their eyes softened instead, something quieter settling there.

Ryland let out a breath through his nose. “I thought I’d be Dr. Grace by now.”

Hearing the title aloud felt strange. Not embarrassing, exactly. Just old, like trying on a future he had stopped wearing years ago and finding it still fit in a few places.

“I probably would’ve been good at it.”

“I think you would’ve.”

That hurt more than reassurance might have.

Ryland laughed softly anyway. “Thanks.”

“It doesn’t mean you should have done it.”

“I know.”

And he did. He could have been good at research and still have been right to leave it, even if twenty-year-old Ryland would have found that unnecessarily complicated.

Ryland leaned back in the chair and looked toward the street. “I love teaching.”

The words came easily.

Adrian’s expression softened again, not surprised in the slightest. “I know.”

“I really love it.”

“I know that too.”

Ryland smiled. “There are days I want to throw myself out the classroom window.”

“First floor.”

“I’d commit to the bit.”

“That does sound like you.”

He laughed, louder this time. The pigeon startled at the sound and strutted away from the napkin with visible offense.

Once the laughter faded, Ryland added, “Even when they’re in awful moods. Even when they ask questions that make me reconsider public education as a concept.”

Adrian lifted their tea. “A strong endorsement.”

“Thank you.”

The humor settled comfortably between them for a moment before Ryland added, “I think twenty-year-old me would’ve been disappointed for about thirty minutes.”

“Only thirty?”

“Maybe an hour.”

“Generous.”

“He was kind of an ass.”

“You were not.”

Ryland looked at them. “You have known me since I was eighteen.”

“That is exactly why I can say that.”

“You graded my essays.”

“I did.”

“That feels like enough evidence against me.”

“It was evidence of many things.”

“See?”

Adrian’s smile arrived slowly, first in their eyes and then at the corners of their mouth, restrained enough to suggest they were enjoying Ryland’s argument far more than they intended to admit.

Ryland shook his head and took another drink.

Twenty-year-old Ryland probably would have been shocked by him, maybe even a little disappointed. He had expected Dr. Grace and gotten Mr. Grace instead, a title that once would have sounded smaller. Less impressive. Something temporary on the way to somewhere else.

Ryland knew better now. Mr. Grace was what twelve- and thirteen-year-olds called when something broke, or grew, or finally made sense. It appeared across lab reports, thank-you notes, and the occasional apology letter. It belonged to classroom microscopes, Armando, and a garden full of things his students had put into the ground with their own hands.

He still wondered about Dr. Grace. He probably always would. He just didn’t want him badly enough to give up Mr. Grace.

And his career had not been the only part of thirty he had imagined wrong.

Ryland looked across the little metal table at Adrian.

At twenty, Ryland had assumed adulthood would scatter people eventually. College would end, jobs would change, someone would move, and friendships that once occupied whole days would shrink into phone calls and holidays without anyone necessarily doing anything wrong.

Rocky had already been there then, loud and competent and inexplicably invested in whether Ryland had eaten lunch. Adrian had too, woven deeply enough into their lives that Ryland could barely remember college before them.

He had loved them both deeply.

He had also quietly assumed he would lose some version of them eventually.

Sitting across from Adrian twelve years later, drinking the birthday coffee they had ordered exactly right without needing to ask, the assumption felt almost absurd.

Ryland smiled into his cup. “I thought Rocky and I would grow apart.”

Adrian’s expression changed immediately. Their brows drew together just slightly, amusement giving way to attention. “You did?”

“When we were younger.” Ryland rubbed his thumb along the damp side of his cup. “Not because I wanted to. I just thought everybody did eventually.”

Adrian studied him for a moment, then leaned back in their chair. “I don’t think Rocky would’ve let go of you even if you wanted him to.”

Ryland laughed before he could stop himself, head tipping forward toward his cup. “That’s probably true.”

“Probably?”

“Fine. Definitely.”

Adrian lifted their cup, their smile evident in their voice. “You two were alarmingly codependent by nineteen.”

Ryland looked up. “That is a strong accusation.”

“It’s just an observation.”

“We were not codependent.”

Adrian gave him a long, unimpressed look over the rim of their cup.

Ryland lasted about two seconds.

“Okay, maybe a little.”

“Scarily.”

“You willingly joined us.”

“A lapse in judgment.”

Ryland smiled, warmth settling back into the conversation.

“Still. I really thought we’d drift eventually.”

Adrian’s expression softened. “You didn’t.”

Ryland shook his head. “No.”

“And you’re stuck with me.”

He looked at them. “And then I got to keep you too.”

Adrian looked back.

The sincerity of the sentence became apparent approximately half a second after it left Ryland’s mouth.

He took a long drink of his latte.

Adrian rescued him.

“Unfortunately.”

Ryland lowered the cup and exhaled through his nose. “Right. Terrible situation.”

“Truly the worst.”

Adrian said it with perfect seriousness, but their eyes had gone warm, the corners creasing faintly with affection that made the words useless as an insult.

Ryland looked away before the warmth in his chest became embarrassing.

His phone buzzed against the table.

Adrian’s did too.

They looked down simultaneously.

RE: Has the old man fallen yet?

Ryland closed his eyes.

Across from him, Adrian laughed, head tipping back slightly as the sound escaped them.

“Excellent timing.”

“I hate him.”

“No, you don’t.”

Ryland pulled out his phone.

RG: We both received that.

The response came almost immediately.

RE: Meant to. More efficient.

RG: You’re also both older than me.

RE: Not in the ways that matter.

RG: I hate you.

RE: Love you too, happy birthday.

Ryland stared at that one for a second longer before setting his phone down. Twelve years later, Rocky was still there: loud, intrusive, and apparently incapable of allowing sincerity to survive for more than thirty consecutive seconds without doing something obnoxious to it.

Adrian was still sitting across from him too, both of them woven so thoroughly into the ordinary shape of Ryland’s life that he could barely imagine it without them.

Adrian’s phone buzzed again.

They glanced down at the screen, and Ryland watched the reaction happen in stages: their eyes moved across the message, their lips pressed together, and then one corner began creeping upward despite the obvious effort to keep their face neutral. By the time those grey-green eyes lifted to meet his again, amusement had brightened their whole expression.

He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

Adrian turned the screen around.

RE: Also make sure birthday boy does not attempt any feats of athleticism now that his bones are dust.

Ryland stared at the message.

“I take it back.”

Adrian lowered the phone, still fighting the smile pulling at their mouth. “Which part?”

“All of it. Twelve years of friendship is too many.”

“That seems dramatic.”

“He called my bones dust.”

Adrian took a slow drink of their iced tea. “He does raise a valid concern.”

Ryland looked at them in betrayal. “You too?”

“I’m on the side of injury prevention.”

“Terrible situation,” Ryland muttered.

Adrian’s smile softened instead of disappearing, affection settling into it now that the joke had run its course.

The warmth in Ryland’s chest stayed anyway.

Thirty.

Maybe that was part of it too.

At twenty, he had imagined adulthood as a list of things he would accomplish. Degree. Career. Research. Publications, maybe. A doctorate. Something measurable. Something he could point to and say, There. That’s what I built.

Nobody had told him that thirty might be better measured by who still sat across from him for coffee.

-:-

By the time Ryland left the coffee shop, the day had settled into the kind of gentle June warmth San Francisco occasionally allowed itself, bright enough that the sun felt pleasant across his shoulders without turning the ride home into an ordeal. Cooler air still moved between the buildings, tugging at his shirt whenever the breeze picked up and keeping the warmth from becoming anything more than comfortable.

The apartment was warmer than the hallway when he stepped inside.

Ryland kicked the door shut behind him, pulled off his dirtied shoes, and looked automatically toward the windows.

“Everybody alive?”

Armando remained alive.

Mary did too.

Armando and Mary had taken over the bright corner beside the living room window for the summer, temporarily relocated to what Ryland had described to his students as their vacation home. Armando’s vines spilled over his pot in healthy loops now, a considerable improvement over the drooping, rootbound pothos Ryland had once carried into Root & Thorn like a medical emergency. Mary sat beside him, the spider plant Simon had given the classroom and Plant Club had named for reasons nobody ever adequately explained.

Neither seemed interested in congratulating him.

Ryland set down his helmet and glanced around the rest of the room. The ZZ Simon had given him occupied its shelf beside the window, glossy and unbothered. Beneath his parents’ wedding portrait, the young jade sat on its stand—a piece of the plant Simon had carried out of the greenhouse fire, something that had belonged to his mother Yuna long before Ryland knew either of them.

That still felt enormous if he thought about it too long, so he didn’t.

He crossed instead to Armando and Mary and crouched in front of them.

“How’s vacation?”

Armando offered no comment.

Mary, at least, had news.

One of her arching leaves nearly brushed the edge of the table, and from the center of the plant a thin runner had begun extending outward. At its end was the smallest suggestion of a plantlet, little more than a clustered spray of miniature leaves.

Ryland leaned closer, then shifted slightly to get a better look. “Oh.”

Definitely a plantlet.

“Oh, they’re going to lose their minds.”

The kids had already been deeply invested in Mary before summer break, which was probably inevitable after they learned Simon had propagated her himself. They did not know the longer version—that Simon’s spider plant had originally come from a plantlet his mother gave him when he was their age, and that Mary was another generation removed from that one—but they hardly needed extra encouragement.

Ryland had made the tactical mistake on the last day of school of telling them that Armando and Mary were spending the summer at their vacation home.

Apparently vacation home implied amenities.

Did they have enough sunlight?

Yes.

Was Mr. Grace going to take them hiking?

Absolutely not.

Could plants get bored?

Not in any meaningful sense.

Did Armando know it was summer break?

Also no.

One student had even asked if Mary needed sunscreen.

Ryland had answered far too many of those questions seriously.

Now, apparently, Mary had given him another one.

He pulled out his phone and crouched a little lower, trying to catch the plantlet without putting the whole bright window behind it and turning Mary into a silhouette. The first picture focused stubbornly on Armando. The second missed the plantlet almost entirely. On the third, Ryland shifted his angle and tapped the screen until the tiny spray of new leaves sharpened into view.

Better.

He took one more for insurance.

Then, because Plant Club had changed him in ways he did not care to examine too closely, he took a wider picture of both plants together.

Armando’s vines looked particularly good in that one.

Ryland looked at the pictures for a moment, already imagining the reaction when the kids saw Mary’s new plantlet. At least three of them would probably respond within minutes, no matter what time he posted it.

He smiled and locked his phone.

He could put the pictures on the Plant Club Google Classroom later, give them a little summer-vacation update when he was not standing in the middle of his birthday afternoon thinking about twelve-year-olds.

Mary would still have a plantlet by then.

“Later,” he told her.

Mary appeared comfortable with this arrangement.

Armando, as usual, had no opinion.

Ryland straightened and stretched the stiffness out of his knees. The movement pulled faintly through his thighs after the morning at the garden and the bike ride, not painful so much as evidence that he had spent a significant portion of his birthday crouched in soil.

Thirty, apparently.

He refused to give Rocky the satisfaction.

The apartment had gone quiet around him again. Sunlight fell through the windows in broad patches, warmer now than it had been when he left that morning, picking out dust he had previously been content not to know existed. Somewhere outside, a truck backed up with three distant warning beeps. Pipes shifted faintly in the wall.

Ryland looked around.

Simon would be coming over later.

The thought arrived simply.

So did the familiar urge immediately afterward.

The blanket was crooked on the couch. Two books had accumulated on the coffee table beside a mug from yesterday. His bike bag had landed against the wall instead of on its hook. A clean load of laundry remained folded in a basket beside his bedroom door, where it had been waiting patiently for Ryland to acknowledge that folding clothes and putting them away were technically two separate chores.

He could clean. He probably should clean.

The thought immediately began branching into six others—the crooked blanket, the mug, the dust, whether Simon would notice any of it—and Ryland caught the familiar tightening beneath his sternum before it could gather momentum.

No.

Simon had already seen the apartment at significantly worse: dishes in the sink, damp clothes in the bathroom, grading spread across half the living room. He knew Ryland owned laundry and occasionally forgot mugs the second they left his line of sight.

More importantly, Simon knew him.

That still felt like a remarkably different thing.

Ryland bent, folded the blanket over the back of the couch, gathered the mug and carried it into the kitchen. He stacked the books rather than returning them to the shelf because he was still reading them. The backpack went onto its hook.

The laundry could remain where it was. Ryland looked at the basket for a moment, decided it could become tomorrow’s problem, and said, “Tomorrow.”

The basket accepted this.

Ryland rinsed the mug, left it in the drying rack, and felt absurdly pleased with himself for having tidied without transforming the afternoon into a frantic attempt to make his apartment look as though no human being had ever lived there.

Progress did not always announce itself dramatically. Sometimes it was leaving clean socks in a basket because your boyfriend was not going to break up with you over them.

His phone buzzed against the kitchen counter.

Ryland glanced over.

SF: Closing at five. Should be there before six.

A smile pulled at his mouth before he could stop it.

RG: Okay

He considered.

Then added:

RG: Looking forward to seeing you

He almost deleted it.

Didn’t.

The typing bubble appeared, disappeared, then returned.

SF: Me too.

Ryland stared at those two words for a ridiculous amount of time.

He was not going to analyze them.

He was thirty now.

Presumably, this came with wisdom.

Ryland turned the phone facedown.

“Great.”

The plants offered no comment.

-:-

The rest of the afternoon passed without anything requiring intervention.

That alone felt luxurious.

Ryland showered away the garden dirt, changed into clean clothes, ate a snack small enough not to interfere with whatever Simon had planned for dinner, and spent almost an hour reading on the couch with one foot tucked underneath the opposite leg. He even absorbed most of what he read.

At some point, the sun shifted far enough that the light moved off the coffee table and climbed the opposite wall. The apartment cooled by degrees as the afternoon softened toward evening. Ryland opened the balcony door a few inches and let a breeze wander through, stirring the edge of the curtain.

He checked the time only twice. Or maybe three times. Four, technically, but the fourth had been because he received a text, which Ryland felt should not count.

At five thirty-seven, he gave up on pretending he was not listening for Simon in the hallway.

The knock came at five forty-three.

His book closed around one finger while he sat up. He told himself there was no reason to move quickly, then stood anyway and crossed the apartment at a pace that was not running so much as walking with unnecessary purpose.

Entirely different.

When he opened the door, Simon stood on the other side carrying enough things to make Ryland wonder, briefly, whether he had misunderstood the scale of the evening.

A canvas grocery bag hung from one hand, visibly heavy enough that the fabric pulled tight around whatever sat inside. A bakery box was braced carefully between Simon’s forearm and hip. In his other arm, wrapped loosely in brown paper, was a bouquet large enough that the stems shifted and rustled every time he adjusted his grip.

Ryland barely noticed the box.

The flowers got him first.

Sunflowers sat at the center of the arrangement, broad and bright, their petals a deep golden yellow around nearly black centers. They were fuller than the branching varieties Ryland sometimes saw later in summer, each bloom large enough to command attention on its own. Simon had built everything else around them instead of trying to compete with them: soft blue delphinium, small white feverfew, eucalyptus, and loose greenery that softened the shape without making it look overly arranged. The whole bouquet had the slightly wild, gathered look Ryland liked best in Simon’s work, even though he knew exactly how much skill it took to make something look that effortless.

For several seconds, he simply stared.

Simon shifted the grocery bag higher on his hand and looked at him with patient amusement beginning to gather around his eyes.

“Hi,” he said.

Ryland dragged his attention away from the flowers. “Hi.”

A beat passed. Simon’s gaze moved briefly over his face, and the corner of his mouth lifted in one of those restrained little smiles Ryland had become much too good at noticing.

“Can I come in?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Ryland stepped aside, then caught sight of the bakery box threatening to slide another fraction of an inch against Simon’s arm.

“Wait. Here.”

“I’ve got it.”

“I know. Give me those.”

He took the grocery bag first, its weight immediately pulling against his wrist, then slid the bakery box carefully free. The cardboard was cool from wherever Simon had stored it, and something inside shifted almost imperceptibly when Ryland adjusted his grip.

Simon watched him for a second before surrendering both.

“Thanks.”

Ryland backed farther into the apartment with his arms full, Simon following close behind. One of the eucalyptus stems brushed Ryland’s bare forearm as he passed, leaving behind a clean green scent and the faint refrigerated coolness that always seemed to cling to flowers from Root & Thorn.

Ryland kicked the door shut with his heel.

“Counter?”

“Yeah.”

He carried everything into the kitchen and set the grocery bag down first, then the bakery box with considerably more care than the word box probably warranted. Only once both were secure did he turn around.

Simon was still standing a few feet away with the bouquet tucked into one arm.

Without everything else obscuring it, the arrangement looked even larger.

Ryland crossed toward him more slowly. “These are sunflowers.”

Simon glanced down. “Yeah.”

“It’s only June.”

“I know what month it is.”

Ryland frowned at the bouquet like the flowers themselves might explain the problem. “You don’t have sunflowers right now.”

“I do apparently.”

Ryland looked up.

Simon had settled into the expression he used whenever he wanted something obvious to sound like it required no further discussion.

It rarely worked on Ryland anymore.

“You ordered these.”

Simon’s eyes flicked away for half a second.

That was answer enough.

Something warm expanded behind Ryland’s ribs, embarrassingly immediate and soft enough that he briefly wished Simon were worse at this.

“Simon.”

“They’re your favorite.”

He said it like that resolved the entire issue.

Maybe it did.

Ryland looked down again, studying the dark centers and broad petals as though they contained some additional explanation. Favorite flowers had come up in conversation at some point. He could not remember exactly when. Maybe while Simon had been complaining about the availability of something else. Maybe Ryland had mentioned sunflowers in passing while talking about heliotropism. It had clearly not felt important enough at the time for him to preserve the exchange.

Simon had.

“You special ordered my favorite flowers.”

“I order flowers every week.”

“For my birthday.”

Simon let out a quiet breath. “Ryland.”

Ryland was mostly used to hearing his first name from Simon now, though the quiet familiarity of it still would have stunned last year’s version of himself.

He stepped closer and kissed him.

The bouquet made the angle awkward. Ryland had to turn slightly to avoid crushing feverfew between their chests, one hand catching against Simon’s side for balance. Simon startled for barely a heartbeat before his free hand settled at Ryland’s waist, broad palm warm through the thin fabric of his shirt.

The kiss was brief, but not tentative.

That distinction still pleased Ryland more than it probably should have.

There had been so many months when every touch between them seemed to arrive with a question attached. Was that okay? Did that mean something? Did Simon notice? Was Ryland imagining the whole thing?

Now Simon’s thumb moved once against his side simply because his hand was there.

Ryland pulled back enough to look at him.

“Thank you.”

Simon’s expression softened around the edges. “Yeah.”

Ryland smiled and stole another kiss, shorter this time and entirely unnecessary.

Simon made a quiet sound against his mouth.

“What was that for?” he asked as Ryland pulled away again.

“You brought me flowers.”

“Already kissed me for those.”

“I didn’t know there was a limit.”

Simon’s mouth pulled up in amusement again, and Ryland decided that meant he had won.

The flowers went into the vase Simon had bought him before Ryland could become any more unbearable about them. Ryland filled it while Simon loosened the paper from around the stems. They moved around each other without much discussion, Simon passing behind him toward the sink just as Ryland stepped aside, Ryland shifting automatically when Simon reached around him for the shears he had apparently brought in the grocery bag.

Their hips brushed once when Ryland leaned toward the faucet.

Simon’s free hand found his waist for half a second, not pushing him away so much as steadying their positions until there was room for both of them.

Ryland looked down at the hand, smiling something small and private.

By the time the arrangement stood on the counter, the sunflowers had spread naturally toward the room, broad golden faces catching what remained of the evening light. Ryland adjusted one stem before catching Simon watching him.

“What?” Ryland asked.

Simon shook his head. “Nothing.”

“That looked judgmental.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You’re bad at lying.”

Simon turned his face away, though Ryland could hear a huff of a laugh.

The bakery box came next.

He recognized Olesya’s sticker before he even lifted the lid. The lemon meringue pie inside looked almost offensively perfect. Pale yellow filling sat beneath a thick layer of meringue shaped into soft peaks, each tip browned delicately enough to turn gold. The crust around the edge was neat and evenly fluted, the kind of precision Ryland’s own pastry occasionally achieved through luck and measurement but never quite with Olesya’s irritating consistency.

The smell reached him a second later.

Lemon, bright enough that his mouth watered before he had tasted anything.

Ryland smiled and looked over his shoulder. “Lemon?”

Simon was already unpacking ingredients from the grocery bag. He looked up, handling a bag of small potatoes. “No. Mustard.”

Ryland snorted. “Simon.”

“Yes. Lemon.”

“You remembered.”

Simon looked over at him like Ryland had said something strange. “You like sour things.”

That was all.

No explanation of when Ryland had mentioned it. No performance around remembering. Just another fact Simon had apparently stored somewhere alongside Ryland’s coffee order, how he took his tea, what flowers he liked, and the exact amount of time Ryland could spend insisting he was fine before Simon stopped believing him.

Ryland looked back down at the pie.

There was something almost unfair about being loved by someone observant.

Ryland was increasingly sure that was what this was—not the flowers or the pie by themselves, but the accumulation. Coffee orders and tea preferences. A hand at the small of his back. Fingers adjusting his collar without asking. Enough small things gathered together that they had stopped feeling separate.

He shut the box carefully and slid it into the refrigerator.

When he turned back, Simon had begun laying the rest of the groceries across the counter in a loose row: chicken, beef, a bag of small potatoes, asparagus, several lemons, a head of garlic, fresh rosemary and thyme, black pepper, sesame oil, and, inexplicably, a packet of dried seaweed.

Ryland raised an eyebrow at the amount of food.

“Are we expecting guests?”

“No.”

“That’s a lot of potatoes.”

“You eat leftovers.”

“That is true.”

“Then we’re fine.”

Ryland leaned one hip against the counter while Simon continued unpacking. The ingredients did not seem to belong to one obvious meal, at least not one Ryland could identify immediately. The chicken, potatoes, asparagus, lemon, garlic, and herbs made sense together. The sesame oil and seaweed clearly belonged to something else, though whatever Simon had planned, he moved through the kitchen with enough certainty that Ryland decided not to interrogate the process yet.

Mostly.

Simon filled a bowl with water and tipped the dried seaweed into it. The dark pieces floated stiffly at first, folded over themselves in leathery strips, then slowly began to loosen and deepen in color as they took on water. Ryland watched them shift for a moment before Simon turned away to deal with the beef.

A little sesame oil went into a pot on the stove, followed by the beef once the oil had warmed. It hit the metal with a soft hiss. The smell changed almost immediately, warm and nutty beneath the richer scent of the meat as Simon stirred it with a wooden spoon, breaking the pieces apart and letting them brown against the bottom of the pot.

Ryland watched from his place against the counter.

“You’re hovering.”

“I’m observing.”

“Same thing with better branding.”

“Scientifically, no.”

Simon gave him a look and went back to the stove.

Once the beef had browned, he turned the heat down and returned to the bowl at the sink. The seaweed had softened completely now, expanded into long, dark green ribbons that looked almost nothing like the brittle pieces he had dropped into the water a few minutes earlier. Simon drained it, gathered it onto the cutting board, and chopped it into shorter lengths with quick, even strokes.

Ryland’s attention followed the knife.

Simon noticed.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to ask what size you’re cutting it.”

“Exactly.”

Ryland frowned. “That seems like a normal question.”

Simon scraped the chopped seaweed into the pot with the beef, gave everything a few turns together, then added water. The sound softened from a sizzle to a low rush as the liquid hit the hot pot, steam rising around Simon’s hand and carrying the smell of sesame and beef into the kitchen.

He lowered the heat and set the lid partly over the top.

Apparently that was going to sit for a while.

More importantly, Simon was already reaching for the garlic, which meant Ryland had approximately thirty seconds before curiosity became interference. Months of watching Simon cook had taught him that too many questions usually ended one of two ways: Simon answered them with less and less patience, or he found Ryland a job before the hovering became unbearable.

Today, Simon skipped directly to the second option.

He slid the bag of potatoes across the counter.

“Wash those.”

Ryland looked down at them, then back at Simon. “All of them?”

Simon stopped peeling a clove of garlic long enough to stare.

“That was a reasonable question.”

“Wash them all, angel.”

Ryland’s entire argument disappeared.

He hated that.

Or, more accurately, he hated how much he did not hate it.

The word had appeared sometime over the last couple of weeks without warning or explanation. Simon had said it one evening when he’d stayed over at Ryland’s, then again three days later while handing him tea, as if it had always belonged there. Ryland had assumed his nervous system would eventually stop reacting like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed something warm.

It had not.

Simon knew this. The slight lift at the corner of his mouth proved it.

Ryland picked up the potatoes with dignity. “You’re abusing information.”

“I told you to wash vegetables.”

“You know what you did.”

Simon’s mouth pulled a little farther upward, but he returned his attention to the garlic rather than giving Ryland the satisfaction of an answer.

The sink had already accumulated the soaking bowl and a few utensils on one side, leaving Ryland just enough room to wash the potatoes without rearranging Simon’s entire system. He ran the potatoes beneath cool water, scrubbing away the last traces of dirt with his thumbs while Simon moved around behind him.

For the first few minutes, their choreography was imperfect.

Ryland stepped backward at the same moment Simon crossed behind him and bumped directly into his chest. Simon caught him automatically by the hips before either of them could lose balance, palms settling warm and firm against Ryland’s sides.

“Sorry,” Ryland said.

“You’re a fucking giant.”

“That feels unrelated.”

“You take up most of the kitchen.”

“You chose to cook here.”

Simon’s hands stayed where they were for another second. “Mistake.”

Ryland turned his head far enough to look at him over one shoulder. “You can leave.”

“No.”

The answer came quickly enough that something soft passed through Ryland’s chest before he could stop it.

Simon seemed to realize it too. His expression changed almost imperceptibly, the teasing easing out of his eyes while his hands remained at Ryland’s sides.

Ryland leaned back just enough to bump him deliberately.

“Then suffer.”

Simon huffed a laugh and gave one hip a light squeeze before letting him go.

That was the part they were still learning.

Not whether they wanted to touch. That question had been answered thoroughly enough over the last month and a half.

It was the mechanics of it.

How to share a small kitchen. Which touches meant move and which meant stay there. How often Ryland could catch Simon around the middle before it became annoying, and how Simon could put a hand at his back in passing and make Ryland forget what he had been doing.

They were becoming better at it.

Or at least more willing to collide.

By the time Ryland had finished with the potatoes, Simon had minced garlic, measured something into a pot, and stripped leaves from several rosemary stems. The kitchen had begun to smell sharp and green, lemon zest cutting through garlic and the warmer, nuttier scent rising from the pot on the stove.

Simon took the potatoes from him and reached for the knife.

“I can cut them.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you taking over?”

“Because I want them done this century.”

Ryland placed one hand over his chest. “Sweetheart, you wound me.”

Simon went still for half a second.

Ryland caught it immediately.

Simon’s fingers paused around the knife handle, and a faint flush crept up along the tops of his ears before he rearranged his face into something deliberately unimpressed. It was a subtle reaction, almost nothing if Ryland had not already learned to look for it, but that only made it better.

Ryland’s mouth pulled into a smile.

Simon glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a face.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do.”

Ryland leaned one elbow against the counter, entirely too pleased with himself. “I just think it’s interesting that you can call me angel whenever you feel like ruining my ability to form a coherent thought, but apparently I’m not allowed to say anything back.”

Simon narrowed his eyes. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything, sweetheart.”

The flush deepened.

Barely.

Enough.

Simon pointed the knife at him.

Ryland lifted both hands immediately, still grinning. “That seems unsafe.”

“You’re annoying.”

“You call me angel specifically because it short-circuits my brain.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Simon returned his attention to the cutting board with far more concentration than the potatoes required. “I started it.”

Ryland laughed, warm and helpless, and leaned back against the counter before Simon could decide the knife was useful for anything other than dinner.

Simon finished cutting the potatoes while Ryland prepared the asparagus under strict supervision. The chicken went into a roasting dish with lemon, garlic, thyme, and rosemary, enough olive oil drizzled on top to make the herbs cling to the skin. Simon tossed the potatoes separately with more rosemary and garlic, then added a little lemon zest while Ryland watched.

Ryland watched the motion, then the amount disappearing into the bowl. “How much?”

Simon did not look up. “Enough.”

“That is not a measurement.”

Simon sighed. “Here we go.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” Simon set the zester down and gave the potatoes another turn with the spoon. “That’s the problem.”

Ryland crossed his arms.

“Taste your food while you cook.”

“Raw potatoes?”

“Not that part.”

Ryland lifted one hand in immediate vindication. “See? Rules.”

“Jesus Christ.”

He grinned.

This felt good without feeling extraordinary, and maybe that was the extraordinary part.

There had been a time when being in the same room with Simon made Ryland notice every little thing between them simply because it all felt new. A glance held a second longer than expected. A shoulder brushing past his. The quiet shift of Simon stepping closer instead of away. Ryland had carried each of those moments around afterward, turning them over in his head with more attention than they probably deserved.

Now Simon simply moved around him.

When Ryland ended up standing in front of the drawer Simon needed, Simon bumped him aside with one hip and reached past without apology.

Ryland, offended on principle, retaliated by stealing a rosemary leaf from the cutting board and crushing it between his fingers until the sharp green scent bloomed against his skin.

Simon slapped his hand away without looking.

Ryland kissed his shoulder.

That got him.

Simon stopped for a second, knife still in hand, then turned his head just enough for Ryland to catch the reluctant smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

“Distracting.”

“That was the point.”

“I’m holding a knife.”

“I kissed the non-knife side.”

“Very considerate.”

“I try.”

Simon’s expression softened, just enough that the teasing eased out of it, leaving something warmer behind.

“I know.”

The answer landed more gently than the joke deserved.

Ryland stayed where he was for another moment, shoulder resting lightly against Simon’s. The rosemary smell still clung to his fingertips, mixed now with garlic and lemon and the warmer scent of the oven heating behind them. Simon did not move away. Neither did Ryland.

Then the oven beeped.

Simon stepped toward it first, and the contact between them broke without either of them needing to acknowledge it.

The moment did not disappear with him.

It simply folded itself into the rest.

-:-

With dinner in the oven, the kitchen settled into a quieter rhythm. The exhaust fan hummed overhead while the soup simmered at the back of the stove, dark ribbons of seaweed shifting whenever a bubble broke the surface. Simon washed the knife and cutting board while Ryland wiped a streak of soy sauce and olive oil from the counter, garlic and herbs still sharp in the warm air.

Ryland was working at one stubborn spot near the edge of the counter when he realized Simon had gone still.

He looked over.

Simon’s attention had drifted past the kitchen and into the living room, his gaze caught on something beyond Ryland’s shoulder.

More specifically, toward the plants.

Simon’s gaze passed over Armando and Mary first, lingering just long enough on Mary’s new runner that Ryland wondered whether he had noticed the plantlet from across the room. Then it moved over the glossy darker leaves of the ZZ plant before finally settling on the little jade beneath Ryland’s parents’ wedding portrait.

Something in Simon’s face changed.

Ryland would not call it sadness, exactly. The line of his mouth did not tighten, and there was none of the guarded stillness Ryland had once learned to watch for. He simply went quieter somehow, his expression softening around the eyes as the rest of the room seemed to fall briefly out of his attention.

Simon crossed the living room without saying anything.

Ryland stayed where he was, dishcloth still resting beneath one hand.

The jade was small enough that it still looked almost delicate despite the thickness of its leaves, settled neatly into the pot Simon had chosen for it only a few weeks earlier. Its roots had been well established by the time Simon gave it to him after the festival, but that had not stopped Simon from delivering the care instructions with the gravity of someone transferring custody of a vital organ.

Ryland had listened.

Obviously.

Simon crouched in front of the little stand and pressed two fingertips lightly into the soil. He studied the plant for another moment, then gently turned one of the leaves between his fingers, checking the surface and underside with the same absent precision he used at Root & Thorn.

Ryland smiled.

“You’re doing an inspection.”

Simon did not look back. “I’m looking.”

“You touched the soil.”

“That’s still looking.”

“With your fingers?”

Simon glanced over one shoulder. “Advanced technique.”

Ryland huffed a quiet laugh and abandoned the counter, crossing the room to join him.

By the time he got there, Simon had straightened. His attention moved upward almost immediately, catching on the photograph above the jade.

Ryland followed his gaze.

His father stood angled toward his mother, tall and broad through the shoulders in a suit that had never quite fit him properly. Ryland had inherited enough of him—the cheekbones, the shoulders, something familiar in the slightly folded way he held himself—that the resemblance could still catch him off guard.

His mother looked more like herself until Ryland reached her eyes. The same clear blue Ryland had spent his life being told came from her, bright above an open smile as she held his father’s arm. He was looking at her instead of the camera, already beginning to laugh.

Ryland had seen the photograph thousands of times.

Some days, he saw his parents.

Some days, he saw all the pieces of himself that had existed before he did.

Simon looked from the photograph to the jade and back again. After a moment, he reached up and nudged the lower edge of the frame until it sat level.

Ryland frowned.

It had not looked crooked, at least not enough for him to notice.

But it had been.

“There,” Simon said.

Something in Ryland’s chest pulled tight.

Simon stepped back, apparently satisfied, and turned his head over his shoulder to find Ryland watching him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Simon narrowed his eyes. “You’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“That one.”

Ryland could have argued. Instead, with Simon’s back still to him, Ryland stepped in behind him and wrapped both arms around his middle.

Simon paused.

Then relaxed backward against him with an ease that still felt new enough for Ryland to notice, even if it no longer surprised him. Ryland rested his chin near Simon’s shoulder, cheek brushing lightly against his hair, and Simon’s hand came down over one of Ryland’s where it rested across his stomach.

“You okay?” Simon asked.

“Yeah.”

Ryland meant it.

He looked past Simon toward the photograph and the jade beneath it, the two objects sharing the same small section of wall in a way Ryland had not planned carefully enough to call symbolic. It had simply felt right to put the cutting there.

“Thank you.”

Simon’s thumb moved once over Ryland’s knuckles. “For what?”

Ryland could have explained. For the jade, maybe, or the frame, or the fact that Simon seemed to understand without needing either of those things explained back to him. The answer felt too large for the moment.

So Ryland pressed a kiss into Simon’s hair near his temple instead.

“Just… thank you,” he breathed.

Simon was quiet for a few seconds. Ryland felt the slow rise and fall of his breathing beneath his arms before Simon shifted inside the embrace, turning carefully until they were facing each other without Ryland having to let go completely.

His hands settled at Ryland’s shoulders.

“You’re getting sappy.”

Ryland gave him a solemn look. “I’m thirty now.”

“You’ve been thirty for less than a day.”

“I’ve changed.”

Simon snorted, the sound soft enough that Ryland felt it as much as heard it.

Ryland kissed him.

There was no particular reason to. The conversation did not need softening, and Simon had not said anything that required an answer Ryland could not manage with words. Simon was simply there, warm beneath Ryland’s hands, and kissing him had become something Ryland was allowed to do when he wanted to.

That still felt worth appreciating.

Simon’s hands shifted more securely onto his hips as the kiss lingered, and when Ryland finally drew back, he caught the faint curve of Simon’s mouth before it disappeared.

“You have garlic hands,” Ryland murmured.

Simon looked immediately offended. “I washed them.”

“You still smell like garlic.”

“I’m cooking.”

“And flowers.”

Simon’s brow lifted.

Ryland smiled, close enough that he could see the tiny shift of Simon’s expression when he realized the comment had not been a complaint.

“It’s nice.”

For a moment, Simon’s face did that soft thing again, the guarded humor easing away until there was nothing between Ryland and the warmth underneath it.

Then the oven timer went off.

Simon closed his eyes briefly and sighed, his forehead nearly touching Ryland’s.

“Saved by appliances.”

Ryland smiled. “You set the timer.”

“Still counts.”

He let Simon go reluctantly, though his hand dragged once along Simon’s side before dropping away. Simon headed back toward the kitchen, and Ryland followed a step behind, the smell of garlic and rosemary growing stronger as soon as they crossed back into the warmer air near the oven.

-:-

They had the soup first.

By the time Simon ladled it into two bowls, the kitchen smelled different from the dinner roasting in the oven. Lemon and rosemary still hung warm in the air whenever the oven cycled on, brightened by garlic and the faint peppery scent of the asparagus, but the soup carried something deeper underneath: sesame oil, beef, soy sauce, and the softer oceanic smell of the seaweed after nearly an hour in the broth.

Ryland carried both bowls to the table while Simon checked the chicken one last time.

The sunflowers had been shifted far enough toward the end of the table that they did not block either of them, though they still managed to dominate the room. Evening light caught along the yellow petals from behind, turning the thinner edges almost translucent and throwing loose, flower-shaped shadows across the backsplash.

Simon sat across from him.

Ryland looked into the bowl.

The seaweed he had watched Simon soak and chop earlier floated dark and soft through the clear broth, winding around pieces of beef beneath the surface. He lifted his spoon but paused before taking the first bite.

“What is it?”

“Miyeok-guk.”

Ryland repeated the word carefully, enough that Simon gave a small approving nod.

“Seaweed soup,” Simon translated.

“I got the seaweed part.”

“I’m impressed.”

Ryland smiled and stirred the broth once with his spoon. “What’s it for?”

Simon’s gaze lowered briefly toward his own bowl.

The question changed something in him. Not enough that Ryland thought he had said the wrong thing, only enough that the easy humor settled. Simon turned his spoon once between his fingers before answering.

“It’s birthday food.”

Ryland looked up.

“In Korea,” Simon continued. “You eat it on your birthday. My mom made it every year.”

His voice had gone quieter. Not fragile, exactly. Just careful around the edges.

Ryland set his spoon down without thinking.

Simon noticed immediately. “You don’t have to stop eating.”

“I’m listening.”

The corner of Simon’s mouth moved.

He looked back at the soup. “Women eat seaweed soup after giving birth. It’s supposed to help with recovery.” He paused, brows drawing together slightly as he searched for the rest. “So birthdays are connected to that. You eat it because it’s your birthday, but it’s also about remembering your mother. Being grateful she got you here.”

Something beneath Ryland’s ribs shifted.

He looked down at the dark green ribbons in his bowl.

His mother existed in his memory mostly through evidence: photographs, handwriting, stories repeated so often Ryland sometimes had to remind himself he had not actually been there for them. His father existed much the same way. There were no voices to miss because Ryland had never known them, an absence with its own strange shape.

Simon’s eyes flicked briefly toward the living room, where the wedding portrait hung above the jade.

“I know it’s mostly about the mother,” he said. “Traditionally.”

Ryland looked back at him.

Simon’s shoulders had drawn a little tighter.

“But I figured…” He hesitated, then continued more quietly. “Your parents… they both got you here.”

Ryland could not answer immediately. His parents had always been part of his birthdays in stories and photographs—Gloria remembering his mother’s pregnancy, Arthur remembering how terrified Ryland’s father had looked the first time someone put an infant in his arms—but this was different.

Simon had taken something that belonged to his own mother and quietly made room inside it for Ryland’s parents too.

Not replacing anything. Just making room.

Ryland looked back at the bowl. For all the emotion in his chest, he couldn’t help but say, “My mother would have had opinions about this.”

Simon blinked, then visibly relaxed. “About the soup?”

“The seaweed.”

“Of course.”

“She was a biologist.”

“That does not automatically make every organism relevant.”

Ryland looked mildly offended. “Seaweed is extremely relevant.”

“To what?”

“Several ecosystems.”

Simon stared at him.

Ryland tried to keep his expression serious and failed almost immediately. A laugh slipped out, soft enough that some of the pressure in his chest loosened with it.

Simon shook his head. “I tried.”

“You did very well.”

“Thank you.”

Ryland finally lifted his spoon and tasted the broth.

It was lighter than he expected, savory without being heavy, the beef and soy deepening it without overwhelming the seaweed. The greens were soft enough to yield immediately beneath his teeth, and sesame lingered after the first swallow, warm and nutty beneath the garlic.

Simon watched him from across the table.

Ryland took another bite before answering the question Simon had not asked.

“It’s good.”

Simon’s expression relaxed another degree. “Yeah?”

“Really good.”

“Mom’s was better.”

The answer came automatically enough that Ryland suspected Simon had not meant to say it aloud.

He smiled. “I’d hope so.”

Simon’s brows drew together.

“She had how many years on you?”

“A lot.”

“There you go.”

Simon looked back down at his bowl, and the line of his mouth softened.

Ryland reached across the table and rested his fingertips over Simon’s free hand. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

There.

Again.

Simon’s eyes lifted.

Ryland caught the reaction cleanly this time: the tiny widening before Simon could stop it, the warmth creeping up along the edge of one ear. His own smile widened.

Simon narrowed his eyes. “Don’t.”

“I’m thanking you.”

“You’re enjoying yourself.”

“Also true.”

Simon turned his hand beneath Ryland’s until their fingers fit together properly.

Ryland did not tease him again.

Not yet.

They finished the soup slowly, hands resting together between the bowls whenever neither of them needed both.

-:-

The rest of dinner required some rearranging.

Simon cleared the soup bowls while Ryland pulled the asparagus from the oven under strict instruction, opening the door only far enough to let a wave of heat roll over his arms before he immediately stepped back.

“Hot,” he reported.

Simon, halfway to the sink with both bowls, looked over. “Yes.”

“I was reporting an observation.”

“Very scientific.”

“Thank you.”

The chicken had browned beautifully, herbs dark against the skin and thin lemon slices softened nearly translucent around it. The potatoes had crisped along their cut edges, garlic scattered between them in browned pieces that smelled good enough for Ryland to reach toward the tray without thinking.

Simon caught his wrist.

“Hot, remember?”

Ryland looked at him.

Simon looked back.

“I knew that.”

“You were about to touch one.”

“I was evaluating.”

Simon’s expression stayed flat for almost two full seconds before it cracked.

Ryland laughed with him.

They plated everything together, though Simon handled the chicken because apparently Ryland had forfeited his right to interact with hot potatoes. Ryland added the asparagus and stole a crisp piece of rosemary from the tray while Simon’s back was turned.

Simon slapped lightly at his fingers.

“Stop eating components.”

“It’s already cooked.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

Simon opened his mouth, appeared to reconsider the argument entirely, and gestured toward the table instead.

“Sit down.”

Ryland obeyed, still chewing the rosemary.

The meal itself was simple in a way the preparation had not been. Lemon tied most of it together without flattening everything into the same flavor: brighter and herbal with the chicken, sharper over the asparagus, almost disappearing beneath the garlic and rosemary on the potatoes.

Ryland made it through an entire potato without dropping anything.

Simon congratulated him.

Ryland kicked him lightly under the table.

Simon caught his ankle between his feet.

Ryland looked down at the point of contact, then back up.

Simon continued eating like he had done nothing.

“Are you holding my foot hostage?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“Eat.”

Ryland smiled and did.

Conversation wandered with the meal instead of trying to become anything important. Simon told him about a man who had come into Root & Thorn that morning asking for a plant that “couldn’t die,” then rejected every suggestion because none were visually dramatic enough.

“What did he leave with?” Ryland asked.

“Nothing.”

“You refused to sell him a plant?”

“He asked if he could water a succulent every day.”

Ryland winced.

“I saved lives.”

“Heroic.”

“I know.”

Ryland told Simon about Mary’s new plantlet and admitted that he had nearly posted the pictures to the Plant Club Google Classroom.

Simon gave him a long look.

“I didn’t.”

“Growth.”

“Exactly.”

“How long did you stare at the app?”

Ryland stabbed an asparagus spear. “That’s irrelevant.”

“More than a minute?”

“No.”

Simon waited.

Ryland sighed. “Maybe.”

“Pathetic.”

Ryland tried to kick him again.

Simon tightened his feet around Ryland’s ankle.

By the time their plates were mostly empty, the last of the daylight had faded from the kitchen. The windows had gone dark and reflective, catching pieces of the room instead: the overhead light, the sunflower bouquet, Ryland and Simon sitting across from each other layered faintly over the neighboring buildings outside.

Ryland caught his own reflection once.

Thirty-year-old Ryland looked disappointingly similar to twenty-nine-year-old Ryland.

Same hair. Same nose. Same tendency to fold slightly forward when he had been sitting too long.

Maybe that was reassuring.

He had spent enough of the day comparing decades. His face did not need to participate.

Across from him, Simon had gone quiet, though not in any way that suggested something was wrong. He was turning his water glass slowly between both hands, shoulders lower now than they usually were after a full day at the shop.

Ryland watched him for a moment.

The thought came without much warning.

“This isn’t remotely where I thought I’d be.”

Simon’s fingers stilled around the glass.

He looked up. “Bad thing?”

Ryland knew the answer before the question had fully landed.

“No.”

The certainty surprised him anyway.

He let out a slow breath and looked down at the table, following the wood grain with one thumb.

“No. Not even close.”

Simon waited.

“When I was twenty, I was pretty sure I’d be Dr. Grace by now.”

Simon’s expression remained attentive.

“Lab somewhere. Research. Maybe still finishing a PhD if I’d made especially questionable academic decisions.” Ryland smiled faintly. “I really thought that was what my life was supposed to look like.”

“You wanted it.”

“Yeah.”

Ryland appreciated that Simon did not make it a question.

“I did. I think part of me always will.” He picked at a stray rosemary leaf near the edge of his plate. “Not all of it. But the work. The questions. Knowing something because you figured out how to ask the right thing.”

Simon nodded.

Ryland looked toward the dark window, at his reflection looking back. “I still wonder what that version of me would’ve been like.”

“Annoying.”

Ryland turned back.

Simon’s mouth was curled up.

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

“He’d have a doctorate.”

“Wouldn’t help.”

Ryland laughed.

Somehow, that made the thought easier to hold.

“He’d be insufferable about methodology.”

“You’re already insufferable about methodology.”

“Fair.”

Simon leaned back slightly.

Ryland looked at him. “I don’t think I’d trade.”

Something small changed in Simon’s face, a softening about his eyes that Ryland adored.

Ryland smiled a little. “That’s the weird part.”

“Why?”

“Because twenty-year-old me would’ve thought that was insane.”

“He was twenty.”

“So?”

“Twenty-year-olds are idiots.”

Ryland hummed as his gaze wandered toward the flowers again. “I think I kept expecting thirty to feel like arriving.”

Simon’s brows drew together slightly.

“Like everything would be settled by now. Career. Future. Whatever.” Ryland shrugged. “I’d know what I was doing.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Ryland stared at him. “Good?”

“Would’ve been annoying.”

“I’m beginning to think your birthday support is lacking.”

Simon reached across the table and took his hand. His thumb moved once over Ryland’s knuckles.

Ryland looked down at it.

The joke settled.

So did he.

“I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Simon went still.

His fingers stayed wrapped around Ryland’s, and his expression barely changed at all, but Ryland knew him well enough now to catch the way the words landed.

“That’s a lot of pressure for a birthday dinner.”

Ryland laughed immediately.

There they were.

“Not because of the dinner.”

“Good. Soup’s not carrying that much emotional responsibility.”

Ryland’s laughter grew enough that his head dipped forward. When he looked back up, Simon was smiling too.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“I love my job. Even when it makes me insane.”

“Generous.”

“I love the kids.”

“Questionable.”

“Simon.”

“They put googly eyes on your microscope.”

“That was one time.”

“You kept them on.”

Ryland ignored that.

“And I have Rocky and Adrian, somehow, after all this time.”

“They’re very persistent.”

“They are.”

Ryland looked down at their joined hands, then back at Simon.

“And I have you.”

The joking left Simon’s face.

Ryland did not look away.

After a moment, Simon’s fingers tightened gently around his.

“You do.”

Two words.

Enough.

Something in Ryland’s chest ached pleasantly. He reached across the table with his free hand and touched Simon’s cheek, thumb brushing once through the short beard there.

Simon leaned into his palm.

“Good,” Ryland said softly.

Simon turned his head and pressed a kiss to the inside of Ryland’s wrist.

That was almost unfair.

Ryland inhaled sharply.

Simon looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You made a face.”

“Shut up, sweetheart.”

The faint warmth appeared along Simon’s ears again, then underneath his hand.

Ryland smiled.

-:-

Simon’s gift came after dinner, though not immediately. They cleared the plates first, and Ryland assumed the sunflowers, pie, soup, and entire meal represented more than enough birthday attention for any reasonable human being.

Simon apparently disagreed.

While Ryland stood at the counter transferring leftovers into containers, Simon disappeared toward the other end of the kitchen. Ryland barely noticed until he turned around and found him holding a narrow package wrapped in brown paper.

Ryland stared at it. “No.”

Simon held it out anyway.

“You already did too much.”

“I cooked dinner.”

“And brought flowers.”

“Flowers aren’t a gift.”

“They literally are.”

“Olesya made the pie.”

“You paid her.”

“Ryland.”

There was a particular finality to the way Simon said his name that made further argument feel pointless. Ryland sighed and took the package.

It was a little heavier than he expected, though not by much. The brown paper was thick and neatly folded around whatever was inside, the corners crisp beneath his fingers. Ryland slipped one finger beneath the tape instead of tearing through it.

Simon watched him for several seconds. “You can rip it.”

“I know.”

Simon sighed.

Ryland smiled and continued opening it carefully anyway, peeling back one folded edge and then the other until the dark green cover beneath came into view.

The smile faded before it could fully form.

Ryland knew what it was immediately.

Not because it matched his parents’ field notebooks. It didn’t. Theirs were older, some canvas and some leather, chosen according to whatever had been practical and available at the time. This one was new and sturdy, with reinforced corners and a thick elastic closure stretched around the cover. It looked made to survive being shoved into a backpack, carried through rain, dropped onto rocks, or set down absentmindedly in the dirt while its owner became distracted by something more interesting.

It looked meant to be used.

Ryland ran his thumb slowly over the cover before pulling the elastic free and opening it.

Inside, in Simon’s handwriting, were three simple lines.

Ryland Grace

Field Notes

June 3, 20XX

For a few seconds, the kitchen seemed unusually quiet around him. The refrigerator still hummed, water moved faintly through the pipes somewhere in the wall, and the smell of dinner still lingered warmly in the apartment, but all of it felt farther away.

Ryland traced the edge of the page instead of the writing.

“You remembered.”

Simon shifted his weight slightly. “You talked about them.”

Ryland looked up.

Simon’s expression was calm, almost deliberately so, though one hand rested against the edge of the table with his fingers curled lightly against the wood.

“The field notebooks.”

“Yeah.”

Ryland turned the page.

Blank.

The next one was too.

The paper was lightly gridded, enough to organize observations or sketches without forcing either into a particular shape. Ryland let his thumb brush over the faint lines and thought of the notebooks he had grown up with.

His parents’ notebooks had always been finished things to him. Evidence left behind. Pages already filled with observations, measurements, sketches, questions, crossed-out ideas and notes written sideways when somebody ran out of room. He could read them, study them, trace the shape of his parents’ lives backward through them, but nothing he did could change what was already on those pages.

This was different. These pages were blank because nothing had happened yet. There was still something to put in them.

Ryland swallowed.

When Simon spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Thought you should have one of your own.”

That did it.

Ryland closed his eyes for a second and let out a breath that turned unexpectedly into a short, watery laugh. “Jesus.”

Simon’s brows drew together. “Bad?”

Ryland looked at him immediately. “No. No, sweetheart. Not bad.”

The reaction was small, but familiar now. Simon’s expression softened around the eyes, and the faintest warmth touched the tops of his ears before he looked down at the notebook instead.

Ryland knew that reaction now, just as he knew which touches made Simon lean closer and which jokes could pull a laugh out of him despite himself.

He liked knowing the easy parts too.

He closed the notebook carefully and set it on the counter.

Simon’s brows pulled together again, but only briefly. Ryland stepped toward him before he could ask and wrapped both arms around his waist.

A quiet sound of surprise escaped Simon, followed almost immediately by his arms closing around Ryland in return. There was no hesitation to it. Simon simply held him, firm and warm, while Ryland tucked his face against his shoulder and spread one hand between his shoulder blades.

For a moment, Ryland stayed there and breathed, willing away the stinging at his eyes.

Simon smelled like soap beneath the remnants of dinner, lemon and garlic still clinging faintly to his shirt, with that green trace of Root & Thorn beneath it all that Ryland was beginning to think might be permanent.

“I love it,” he said against Simon’s shoulder, voice a little wobbly.

Simon’s hand moved slowly up and down his back. “Good.”

Ryland pulled away only far enough to see his face, keeping his arms loosely around him. “I’m going to use it.”

“You better.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

Ryland kissed him.

It was quick at first, more gratitude than anything else, but when he drew back it immediately felt insufficient. He kissed Simon again, slower this time, and Simon made a soft amused sound against his mouth.

Ryland liked the sound enough that he kissed him a third time.

Simon laughed properly then, quiet and warm between them, his hands settling more securely at Ryland’s waist.

“Okay,” he murmured when Ryland finally let him breathe.

Ryland stayed close. “What?”

“You’re welcome.”

Ryland grinned.

-:-

They cleaned the kitchen together after dinner and pie, Simon washing while Ryland dried because apparently Ryland’s relationship with baked-on oil had not improved enough to earn full dishwashing privileges.

Not that he was complaining.

Simon reached past him for the cabinet without warning, one hand settling briefly at Ryland’s waist as he leaned around him, and Ryland handed over a plate without looking.

Simon put it away.

Ryland noticed that more than he expected to. Simon knew where the plates went now, and the tea, and the clean towels. He knew which drawer stuck if someone pulled too hard instead of lifting slightly first.

None of those things were important on their own, but sometime during the last month and a half Simon had begun moving through the apartment less like a guest and more like someone who expected to come back.

Ryland slowed with the dish towel still wrapped around the next plate.

Simon glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s twice.”

“I’m allowed to think.”

“Debatable.”

Ryland bumped his shoulder into Simon’s.

Simon bumped him back without missing a stroke with the sponge.

By the time the last dish was put away, the apartment had grown warm from several hours of cooking. Heat lingered around the kitchen despite the open balcony door, and Ryland had pushed his sleeves to his elbows sometime during cleanup. Simon had pulled his hair back again too, though enough dark strands had escaped around his face that the effort seemed mostly symbolic.

Ryland looked toward the open door and the cooler air beyond it.

“Outside?”

Simon followed his gaze. “Yeah.”

On the way past the table, Ryland picked up the field notebook.

He did not consciously decide to bring it.

It simply came with him.

The balcony was small, but Ryland liked it better at night. During the day, the neighboring buildings felt close enough that he could see too much of everyone else’s lives: laundry hanging just inside open windows, plants crowded along fire escapes, somebody’s forgotten coffee cup balanced precariously on a sill across the alley.

At night, some of that distance came back.

Windows became warm rectangles instead of rooms. Traffic softened several stories below them. The city existed mostly in scattered lights, distant voices, and the occasional rush of tires over pavement.

The wicker loveseat sat against the railing next to the door, its tan woven frame catching the spill of light from the apartment. Ryland had bought it secondhand two summers earlier with the sincere belief that outdoor furniture would somehow transform him into the kind of person who drank coffee on the balcony every morning.

Mostly, it had become an attractive place to abandon things—a sweatshirt, mail, once an unopened bag of potting soil for nearly three days.

Tonight, at least, it was clear.

Ryland sat first, and Simon settled beside him. There were technically several inches of unused space between Simon and the opposite armrest, but neither of them seemed particularly interested in preserving it.

Their thighs touched almost immediately. Their shoulders rested together as the wicker gave a quiet creak beneath the shift in weight. The evening had cooled enough that the air felt good against Ryland’s still-warm skin, slipping beneath the sleeves pushed to his elbows and through the open collar of his shirt.

He exhaled and let himself sink farther into the seat. “Better.”

Simon leaned back beside him. “Your apartment’s hot.”

“You cooked.”

“Your insulation is bad.”

“That too.”

Ryland rested the notebook across his thighs, one hand settling over the dark green cover.

Simon looked down at it. “What’s first?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re already overthinking the notebook.”

“I’ve had it for an hour.”

“Exactly.”

Ryland rubbed his thumb along the edge of the cover, feeling the slight texture beneath it. “Garden, probably. Mary’s plantlet.”

Simon nodded. “The kids will want names.”

“They’ll want measurements too.”

“Names first.”

“That’s probably true.”

Ryland smiled.

The pictures could wait until later. There was no hurry, and that felt worth noticing.

The loveseat shifted when Simon moved one arm along the back behind him. Ryland glanced at the arm, then at Simon.

Simon raised a brow.

Ryland leaned closer.

Simon’s arm settled around his shoulders without either of them needing to discuss it, pulling him naturally into the warm line of his side. Ryland rested there, close enough that their hips and thighs pressed together while the cooler night air moved around everything else.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Simon’s fingers moved absently over Ryland’s upper arm. Ryland could hear his breathing beneath the softer noise of the street, along with the occasional car passing below and the faint clatter of something from another apartment.

Through the open balcony door to their right, the sunflowers were still visible on the kitchen counter, their yellow faces bright even beneath the dimmer light. Armando and Mary sat farther back near the window, and beyond them the little jade rested beneath his parents’ photograph.

The field notebook lay beneath Ryland’s palm.

Twenty-year-old Ryland would have understood that part.

He would have understood dates, observations, measurements, the reason small details needed to be written down before memory blurred or rearranged them. He would have understood why someone carried a record of what they saw.

He probably would not have understood much else about tonight.

Strangely, that no longer hurt.

Ryland looked down at his hands. One rested over the notebook. The other had found Simon’s sometime without Ryland remembering exactly when.

Their fingers were loosely threaded between them.

At twenty, Ryland had imagined thirty as a more finished version of himself. That might have been the part he had gotten most wrong. He had expected arrival: a doctorate, a lab, a permanent job, some invisible threshold where uncertainty burned away and adulthood became solid instead of remaining a series of choices made with whatever information happened to be available at the time.

Thirty did not feel finished, and Ryland was glad. The blank pages beneath his hand did not feel like proof that he was late to something.

They felt available.

Simon shifted beside him, thumb brushing slowly over Ryland’s knuckles, and Ryland looked over.

Dark hair had loosened around Simon’s face again, one strand resting close to the scar along his brow. Ryland reached up and tucked it behind his ear, letting his fingertips trail lightly down the side of Simon’s face afterward.

Simon turned slightly into the touch.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“I’m allowed.”

“Creepy.”

“You gave me flowers.”

“That’s not consent to surveillance.”

Ryland smiled.

Simon’s eyes softened anyway.

Ryland leaned in and kissed him lightly, without any particular reason beyond wanting to.

He had discovered those were some of his favorite kisses.

Not the ones that came after confessions or arguments or careful questions. Just the ones that happened because Simon was there, close enough to touch, and Ryland wanted to.

Simon kissed him back with the same easy familiarity. When they separated, Ryland stayed close enough that their noses nearly brushed.

“I’m glad you came over.”

Simon looked mildly amused. “It’s your birthday.”

“I know.”

“Would’ve been weird if I didn’t.”

“Still.”

Simon watched him for a moment, expression quieter now, before lifting their joined hands and pressing a kiss to Ryland’s knuckles.

“Happy birthday, angel.”

Ryland closed his eyes.

“See, that’s cheating.”

“How?”

“You know what it does.”

Ryland opened his eyes and looked at him. “You’re awful.”

“You adore me.”

“Unfortunately.”

Simon gave their joined hands a small tug.

Ryland went willingly.

This kiss was slower. Simon’s free hand settled along the side of Ryland’s neck, thumb brushing beneath his ear, while Ryland’s palm found Simon’s waist and slid around his back as they shifted closer.

The wicker complained loudly beneath them.

Both of them froze.

Ryland looked down.

Simon did too.

After a beat, Simon said, “Thirty.”

Ryland burst out laughing. “Shut up.”

“Structural concerns.”

“It’s wicker.”

“You’re six-one.”

“You’re muscular.”

“That’s not helping your case.”

Ryland was still laughing when Simon kissed him again.

The laughter softened between them, fading into the kiss until Ryland could feel Simon smiling against his mouth. When they finally settled back, Simon’s arm returned around him and Ryland tucked himself closer, using up whatever space had remained between them.

His head fit comfortably against Simon’s shoulder.

Ryland looked through the open balcony door again.

The sunflowers stood bright against the kitchen, the field notebook warm beneath his hand. Nothing about the room resembled the sterile, fluorescent future Ryland had once built so carefully in his head.

He still loved that imagined life enough to miss it sometimes. Maybe he always would. He could have been good at research, probably would have loved parts of it. Somewhere in the branching logic of all his choices, there was an easy Ryland to imagine who had stayed in the lab, earned the title, published papers, and built the life twenty-year-old him had thought inevitable.

Ryland hoped he would have been happy.

This Ryland was.

Happiest he had ever been did not mean finished. It did not mean he had stopped wondering about roads he had not taken. It only meant he was no longer waiting for some future version of himself to arrive before his real life could begin.

Beside him, Simon shifted, and the wicker creaked beneath the movement.

He looked over.

Simon was already watching him.

“What?”

Ryland smiled. “Nothing, sweetheart.”

There it was again.

Simon’s eyes narrowed after the tiniest pause.

Ryland’s smile widened.

“You’re never stopping that now, are you?”

“No.”

“Great.”

“You started it.”

“I regret everything.”

“No, you don’t.”

Simon sighed, but Ryland leaned closer before he could turn the complaint into anything convincing.

“No,” Simon admitted quietly. “I don’t.”

Ryland kissed him once more, then settled back against his side. Simon’s thumb resumed its slow path over the back of his hand, the movement absent and familiar.

Through the balcony door, the bouquet stood bright against the kitchen.

Ryland looked at Simon, at the flowers he'd arranged specifically for him, and smiled.

Thirty was nothing like he'd imagined.

Thank God.