Page 87 of Angel of Thursdays

“Mm, maybe.”

“Your brother said ‘maybe’ is your ‘no.’”

“It’s a maybe.” May rolled his eyes, grabbed for the chocolate mint, and Cassiel allowed it, allowed May to stab his own straw into it and take a slurp, mixing the taro residue into his drink, an act that once would have been inexcusable. “—It’s pretty good? I mean, for choco mint.”

“And what’s wrong with choco mint.”

“I don’t think we can go down that route, Cassiel. I don’t think this survives that debate.”

Cassiel took his drink back.

21

MAY

His jacket smelled like the cologne Cassiel wore, the one that made May think of gin and tonic and cost something obscene. He’d touched the bottle on Cassiel’s nightstand once, to look at the picture on the back of it, then sprayed a tiny bit of it on his own wrist. He’d kept sniffing at it even after it dried down, only to find that it smelled different on his own skin than it did on Cassiel’s.

They’d been at Boba Lion for maybe an hour, until the other customers had shuffled out and the activity behind the counter made it clear that they were coming up on closing. They walked side by side back out onto the street and lingered there on the sidewalk.

“Well, I’d better⁠—”

“I’ll call an Uber,” Cassiel said, already looking at his phone. He looked different tonight, Dad’s brown trucker jacket no more a match on him than it was on May, though he wasn’t drowning in it.

“We’re not exactly going to the same place,” May said, though now he wasn’t sure.

“I’ll get off on 4th, you’ll go the rest of the way.”

May squinted at him. Behind them, the string lights on the exterior wall of the boba place flickered. Cassiel had never shown much interest in May’s commute before. It was a pain in the dick, had been on the way in, three transfers between Dogpatch and the Outer Richmond, an hour or more spent zoning out with the crunchy earbuds he needed to replace blasting in his ears.

“What?”

“Nothing! That’s nice. Thanks.”

Cassiel paused, squared his shoulders.

“I’m nice,” he said.

“I think you’re just baiting me at this point,” May said, and put his hand in Cassiel’s pocket.

* * *

Cassiel’s hand was around his, in the pocket of May’s father’s coat, which Cassiel was wearing on his body, in the rideshare that he’d called for both of them. A lot of that was weird. May could admit to that.

Their driver was playing what May privately thought of as Christian Horse Girl Music at a low volume. They passed through the rain-slicked streets and May tapped his foot.

They were still together.

The Year of the Snake had eaten everything but somehow they were still together. Cassiel had shown up for Italian-Japanese fusion and listened to him and Louis fight about the night and agreed to boba and made him swap jackets for no reason and they were still together.

It didn’t fix his brain being trash or that he’d fucked up with the family or make him less sure that the next argument would be about the same thing again; the fact that he wouldn’t see a doctor, and that Cassiel, who could manage and name his condition—God, what a word—would continue to have ideas about it.

It didn’t fix that. But May didn’t want a fix right now and, even if he did, it probably wasn’t going to be down to a Korean horologist who liked mint chocolate.

“Here?” asked the driver. They both looked up. May glanced out the window into the dark spotted with streetlights as the car slowed.

“Yes, thank you,” Cassiel said. He opened the door and stepped out.

“Wait,” May said, moving to wriggle out of the bomber jacket while his seatbelt was still fastened.