He squeezed Landon’s shoulder—he and Landon had never hugged each other in front of me, which I thought was kind of weird—and then squeezed mine too.
“Hey, son. Looking sharp, Darius. How’re you doing?”
“Thanks, Mr. E. I’m okay. How about you?”
“B-plus, A-minus,” he said with a wink.
Elliott Edwards had the same gray eyes as his son. And the same auburn hair, though his thick eyebrows and well-kept beard were more brownish. And I couldn’t say for sure, but I suspected that underneath his beard he had the same excellent cheekbones as Landon too.
Landon Edwards had television cheekbones. They were angular and beautiful and always looked like he was blushing. Just a tiny bit.
“I thought you were going to Darius’s tonight?”
“I am,” Landon said.
We were still holding hands.
I really liked holding Landon’s hand.
“We were close. Thought we might as well stop by.”
“Well, perfect timing. Come try this. Polli, can you handle things?”
Polli was one of the managers at Rose City. She was an older white lady—probably about my grandmothers’ age—who always wore all black except for her scarves, which were wildly colorful, and her glasses, which were huge neon-yellow squares.
She seemed like the kind of person who should have been a judge on some kind of reality show. Or owned an antique bookshop, where she catalogued and dispensed esoteric knowledge while sipping espressos from tiny cups.
Polli waved at us and kept talking to a customer about the benefits of local honey.
Mr. Edwards led us into the tasting room, a small room partitioned from the main dining room by a frosted glass wall with the Rose City logo etched into it. The table was set with a row of gaiwans, full of damp, bright green leaves; and in front of those, tasting cups full of steaming emerald liquor.
“Here.” He handed us both ceramic spoons. I let Landon go first, dipping his spoon into each cup one by one and slurping up the tea. It was a robust, grassy green.
“Oh, wow,” I said when I tasted the third one, which had this burst of something—maybe fruity?—on the finish.
Mr. E’s eyebrows danced. “Right? Any guesses?”
“Hm.” I tasted number four, but number three was definitely the best. “Gyokuro?”
Gyokuro was a green tea from Japan, famous for being shaded for three weeks before plucking, which made it taste sweeter and smoother.
“Close. It’s Kabusecha.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like Gyokuro but with only a week of shading.”
“Oh.”
I took another slurp of number three.
“It’s awesome.”
Mr. Edwards smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Are you gonna get some?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Too pricey to be worth it.”
“Oh.”
One of the things I’d learned from interning at Rose City was, sometimes the best teas weren’t the most practical for a business.
I guess I understood that.
“You want the rest?” He grabbed a paper pouch covered in Japanese writing.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thanks!”
“All right,” Landon said. “We’d better go. Pick me up at nine?”
“Sure. Have fun. Make smart choices. Be safe.”
“Don’t be weird.”
Mr. Edwards just laughed as Landon led me out.
* * *
Dad’s car was gone when I punched in the code to the garage door.
I untied my black Sambas and stuck them in the shoe rack while the door rumbled shut behind us.
Landon kicked off his shoes and slotted them next to mine, then followed me into the living room.
“Sorry it’s kind of a mess,” I said, even though I’d vacuumed over the weekend.
“Don’t be.”
I checked the fridge for a note or something.
“Everything okay?”
“My dad was supposed to be home.”
I sent him a text to ask where he was.
Landon had come over before, but Mom or Dad had always been home.
The back of my neck prickled.
I checked all the counters, and the table too, but there was no sign of where Dad had gone, just a pile of dishes in the sink. As soon as Landon saw them, he rolled up his sleeves and started washing them.
“I can do those,” I said.
“I like doing them.”
“I’ll dry, then.”
I stood next to Landon, taking plates and bowls and glasses and drying them with one of the blue-and-white tea towels Mom seemed to have an endless supply of.
Our dishwasher had broken over the summer, and with Mom and Dad’s savings depleted from our trip to Iran, we hadn’t been able to replace it.
Who knew Shirin Kellner’s tea towel collection would prove so useful?
After I dried the last plate, Landon took the towel from me and wiped up the sink and counters and backsplash. He looked up at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
What did you do when you were home alone with the guy you were seeing, and there were no more chores to do?
I grabbed my messenger bag off the chair. “I guess I better put this away.”
Landon followed me up the stairs. My pulse pounded against my eardrums.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Your face is all red.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “It’s just. Dad didn’t leave a note or anything. And we’ve never been alone like this before.”
Landon sat on my bed. I hung my bag on the hook in my closet and turned to face him.
“And I feel like maybe we should be kissing or something.”
Landon laughed at that. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can just talk.”
“I like kissing you, though.”
Landon smiled and bit his lip.
“I like kissing you too.”
He brought his hand up to my face, and then ran his fingers along the edges of my fade. I hadn’t had bare skin there in a long time, and it made me tingle all over.
I really liked that.
I also really liked how Landon was very slow and deliberate with his lips. He had the fullest lips I’d ever seen on a white guy.
I didn’t like it as much when Landon put his other hand on my stomach, because I had to suck in my gut, and that made it a little harder to breathe and still keep up with the kissing.
I did like how it felt when my tongue met his. How careful he was with it.
But then I didn’t like it when Landon moved his hand lower, and his fingertips brushed the skin beneath my waistband.
I couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or not, but I didn’t know how to stop him. Especially since, like I said, I really did like the kissing part a great deal, and to say something I would have had to stop.
And then, of course, I didn’t like it at all when Dad popped his head into my room.
“Darius, can you come help me with Lal—oh.”
Landon yelped as I accidentally bit down on his tongue. We sprang apart.
I covered my lap with my hands.
“Oh.” Dad’s face was at Red Alert. He looked down the hall. His eyes flicked back to my face and then away again. “Sorry.”
My own face was at Red Alert too.
“Your sister got sick at gymnastics. I had to pick her up early.”
“Oh.” Normally Laleh had gymnastics classes on Tuesday evenings, and got a ride home with one of her friends’ parents.
“Can you come downstairs? When you’re, ah, decent?”
My face burned even hotter.
Being caught making out by my father had deflated my indecency in zero point six eight seconds.
“Yeah,” I croaked.
Dad closed the door behind him.
“Sorry,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t know you were a biter.”
I tried to smile. But then, I don’t know why, I wanted to cry a little bit.
I’d switched medications for my depression over the summer, and while I mostly liked the new prescription, and felt ten to twenty percent better on average, sometimes I got very overwhelmed and wanted to cry.
“Hey. It’s okay.” Landon swiped a tear off my cheek.
“I know.” I mean, obviously my parents already knew about Landon and me. They’d seen us kiss before.
But not kiss kiss.
“I know.” I took another breath. “I’m gonna help my dad. You wanna stay here?”
“Nah, I’ll come help too.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
One of the best things about Landon Edwards was how good he was in the kitchen.
Not just doing dishes: He was an awesome cook too.
While Dad took Laleh upstairs to get changed, I washed and peeled vegetables for Landon, who chopped them to make chicken noodle soup.
“What’s this?” He pulled down an unlabeled mason jar of brown spice and unscrewed the lid.
“Careful,” I said, but it was too late. Landon took a sniff, which led to a cascade sinus failure.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks. Whew.”
“It’s my mom’s advieh.”
“Advieh?”
“Like a family spice mix. For Persian cooking.”
“It’s different.”