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“I’m Avery, by the way.”
He takes my hand gingerly, as though he doesn’t have several inches and at least twenty pounds on me.
“Diego.”
“Nice to meet you. Can we please go inside now instead of standing out in the dark and cold? I’ll make you some tea.”
“I have all my stuff here,” Diego says.
I never actually looked inside his car, but when I do, I see it’s full of suitcases. At my insistence, we fit all of the ones we can into his trunk. We each carry one toward the house.
“I can’t believe I’m spending my first night in Montridge in some strange guy’s house,” Diego mutters to himself as we approach the house.
“Not a guy,” I say. It’s almost a reflex at this point. I know what people see when they look at me. At first, I wouldn’t say anything, would just let them continue being wrong. But I forced myself over time to speak up formyself and correct the misconception, as uncomfortable as that usually is.
Like right now. When the hot guy following me into my house looks at me with utter confusion and says, “Huh?”
I point at myself with my free hand. “Not a guy. You’re not going to a strange guy’s house. I’m non-binary.”
His eyebrows shoot up, but it’s not the look I’m used to, the look of mingled annoyance and anger that suggests I’m placing some burdensome imposition on this person. Diego’s gaze holds mostly genuine surprise, like he’s a nature photographer glimpsing a rare bird he never expected to encounter in the wild.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I should have asked.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Most people get it wrong the first time. Just remember for the future.”
I wink, trying to lighten the mood, and if it weren’t so dark I would be absolutely positive that heat is sizzling in Diego’s cheeks. But there’s no way. That’s far too much to hope for out of a chance encounter.
I get Diego inside. We set his suitcases near the door so I can lead him to the kitchen and get started on some tea for both of us. While it’s brewing, he scrolls through his phone, likely looking up auto shops. When I set two cups of tea on the kitchen table, Diego looks up. He blinks like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“You’re young,” he says. “Sorry. Wait. That wasn’tsupposed to be out loud. I’m just surprised. This is your house?”
“It used to belong to a friend,” I say, “but he moved and asked me to stay here and look after it for him. Plus, it houses the café I run.”
“You run a café?”
I grin. “Yeah. The Boyfriend Café. We basically do, well, this. Sort of. Tea and conversation. It’s a refuge for the students at the university nearby. A lot of them come to us when they’re stressed out and just need a calming environment for an hour.”
“The literature didn’t mention a café.”
“Literature?”
“About the university.”
“Are you a student also?” He looks a little older than most of the student body, but maybe it’s just the stubble.
“Yes,” he says, then quickly adds, “grad student. I’ll be a TA starting in a few days. Well, I’m supposed to be a TA anyway. That all hinged on me getting to my apartment tonight, but as you can see, that sort of went awry.”
“That’s a coincidence. I’m a student. You’re actually only a block from the university itself right now.”
Diego laughs nervously, cupping his tea in both hands. “A student. It’s probably inappropriate for me to be in your house.”
I wave the comment away. “The semester hasn’t started. And anyway, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for meto offer to help you out, right? The odds that you’re a TA for any of my classes has got to be super low. I don’t think we actually need to worry about that.”
“You’re probably right,” Diego says. “Well, either way, it’s fortunate for me. Thank you again for all this. I’ll get out of your way as soon as I can.”
“Don’t stress it,” I say, even though what I want to say is that he can stay as long as he wants. In fact, the moment he mentioned being a TA, I couldn’t help hoping I would run into him in one of my classes. Staring at Diego for a semester sounds a lot better than staring at some crusty old professor.
Diego sips his tea, and his shoulders ease away from his ears.
