Page 103 of Angel of Thursdays

“He’s aware,” Cassiel said. “Do you want help sorting your mail?”

“Huh?”

“You said the invite would be coming to mine. The invite is mail. You have a pile of mail.”

May stared at him incredulously. Something monumental had just happened. “Did you just pull a May? Did you just shittily associate your way into opening my mail?”

Every time Cassiel had walked into May’s apartment he’d seen the pile and left it alone.

“Do you want help?” he repeated.

“You are a piece of work, Cassiel Lim,” May said. “—Yes. Sure. I want help. Sort my fucking mail.”

While Cassiel sorted, May thumbed a text to Lauren:

May

Friendship test. Come to my birthday party.

Lauren

Ummm not really a test but duh yes?

I’m getting you a moss ball

Tell Cass he can’t get you a fucking moss ball

“She says you can’t get me a moss ball,” May reported. He didn’t know what that meant, but Cassiel clearly did, because he didn’t look up, just murmured a correction that his heart simply wasn’t in: “Marimo.”

Most of the mail was junk, plus the usual handful of bills addressed to his parents’ house that Louis dumped on the counter the last time he came over. A UCSF envelope surfaced near the bottom. May took it from him, opened it with his thumb, and looked at the billing summary long enough to know he didn’t want to look at the billing summary. He folded it back into the envelope and put it on the counter.

“Medi-Cal,” Cassiel said, not looking up from the rest of the pile of mail.

May squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then sighed. “Yeah. I need to do that. I just—” Didn’t. Couldn’t write it down anywhere. No Sign up for health insurance before you get booted off your parents’ quest.

“It can be easier.” The words May had been expecting were I can help. “We’ll look into it.”

The two of them.

May paused for a second, glanced back to see Cassiel standing there, eerily still. Then May turned back to the wall and took down the Dragon calendar. Cassiel finished the pile.

The gold 福 at the center of the calendar had lost its luster, probably due to kitchen steam, but May liked to imagine it had something to do with May having sapped its lucky energy too. He folded it in half and threw it in the vague direction of the trashcan.

The Snake calendar had been where he left it by the toaster, a boss battle he’d been putting off since that first week after Chinese New Year. He sighed, threw it up where the Dragon had been, slightly askew. New year, same him.

May swung up onto the kitchen counter next to the nearly-sorted mail and clapped his hands.

“Right. Dinner. This is gonna be a huge shocker because I’m not like this at all, but Teresa yaps. She loves to talk. She’s gonna be—okay, eighty percent chance she throws five micro-aggressions at you at once. She’s going to ask you if you’ve seen Crash Landing On You. She’s gonna ask if you know any of the guys from BTS.”

“I know all of BTS.”

May blinked. “What, personally? What does V smell like⁠—”

“May.”

“No, seriously, what⁠—”

“Your dad.”