One time, he even smacked me on the butt.
“Hey!” I said, but he just smirked and kept walking, like he hadn’t done anything.
“Excuse me,” a customer said. They wore a pink sweater with black galaxy-print leggings, which I thought was a pretty cool look. “Do you have any more Bai Hao?”
Bai Hao was one of our best-selling oolongs. It was grown in Taiwan, and every year these little bugs came and chewed on the leaves, until the leaves activated a natural chemical defense that drove them away. That chemical changed the flavor of the tea, made it fruity and floral and awesome.
I glanced at the shelf, but Landon still hadn’t gotten to it yet.
“We have some in the back. I can go grab it.”
I waved down Alexis, who was running the tasting bar, and asked her to keep an eye on the register for me.
“Sure thing,” she said.
* * *
I found a couple boxes of Bai Hao tins in the stock room, along with Landon, who was leaning against the wall, looking at his phone.
“Hey,” he said. “Need something?”
“Some Bai Hao.” I reached up to grab them—they were on the top shelf, where Landon couldn’t reach without the step stool—and stacked a few extras on the pushcart to get stocked later.
“Cool.” Landon slipped his phone into his pocket and stood up. He wrapped his fingers into my belt loops and pulled himself closer to me. I lifted the boxes of tea overhead so he wouldn’t bump into them. “You work too hard.”
“I was just helping someone.”
“You’re always helping someone.” He smiled. “That was the first thing I noticed about you.”
* * *
I met Landon my first day at Rose City—Mr. Edwards introduced us while he gave me a tour—but we got to know each other when we worked the Rose City Teas booth at Portland Pride, serving a bright pink iced hibiscus tisane.
Landon had been to Pride before—he came out as bi when he was in middle school—but it was my first time. I had only come out to my parents like two weeks before.
“Don’t be nervous,” Landon told me. “We don’t bite.”
“I’m not. I’m gay,” I said. “It’s just my first time is all.”
“Oh, really?” He smiled at me.
Landon Edwards had the kind of smile that could shake a comet from its orbit and send it plummeting toward the sun.
“Um. Yeah.”
“Cool. I’m bi.”
“Oh. Cool.”
We spent the whole day talking—interrupted by my running to get more bags of ice or jugs of water.
“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he said. “Alexis and I can help too.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
Landon smiled at me again.
“Well, thanks. At least drink some tea and cool off.”
That was before my hair was cut, when I had a big halo of curly black hair, which did get pretty warm in the summer.
“Okay. Thanks.”
* * *
Landon leaned up to kiss me, and then his hands went from my belt loops to the small of my back. I kissed him with my lips closed, but then he started to add some tongue, and to squeeze my butt, and I leaned away.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve gotta go back out there. I can’t . . .”
“Can’t what?”
I swallowed and glanced at the open stockroom door. “I can’t have an erection on the job.”
Landon smirked again—he had the most charming smirk in the world—and let me go. “Sorry. But we haven’t done that in a while.”
“I know.” I thought back to what Dad and I had talked about. Communicating. I took a deep breath and said, “But I need us to take things a little slow. Okay? You’re my first boyfriend.”
Landon got this smile on his face. “What?”
“What what?”
“You called me your boyfriend.”
Red Alert.
“Um. Is that okay?”
Landon gave me this look.
Another comet fell toward the inner solar system.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay. Boyfriends.” He bit his lip. “Sometimes I forget this is all new to you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’ll go at your pace. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Landon gave me one last peck on the lips.
“Later?”
“Later.”
* * *
“Darius. Can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Sure.”
Mr. Edwards’s office was a little nook tucked behind the tasting room, glass-walled and glass-doored but with exposed brick for the other two walls. The brick was covered in maps of tea-growing regions across the world, and photos (including some cute ones of Landon when he was younger), and little sticky notes with to-do lists on them. Mr. Edwards always drew little squares as bullets for his to-do lists, so he could check them off with a flourish.
“You’ve been here for three months now, so I wanted to check in. Are you still happy?”
“Yeah! Yes. Definitely. I’m learning a lot.”
“Good. The team likes you.”
“I like working with them.”
“And obviously Landon likes you too.”
I blushed.
“I mean . . .”
Mr. Edwards winked at me. “Well, you’ve become a valuable part of our operation. So I was thinking. How would you like to turn your internship into something more official?”
“Like what?”
Mr. Edwards laughed. “Like a job.”
“I thought I had to be eighteen, though.”
“You do for some things, like operating the machinery. But you’re already basically working. Way more than an intern is supposed to. You deserve to get paid.”
I played with the hem of my shirt and studied the white stripes on my Sambas.
“Really?”
“Really.”
I couldn’t help it.
I smiled.
“Okay.”
* * *
I was filling the dishwasher after closing when Landon came and hugged me from behind.
“Hey,” he said. “Did my dad talk to you?”
“Yeah.”
“You said yes, right? I told him you would.”
“You did?”
“He talked to me about it last night.”
I closed the dishwasher and turned around.
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Landon wrapped his hands around my neck. “You’ll be awesome.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed me, and I kissed him. He giggled when I nuzzled into his neck, and sighed when I stroked under his chin with the back of my hand.
“My boyfriend,” he whispered, and I smiled against his mouth.
Landon stepped toward me, which pushed me up against the dishwasher. It beeped shut, but we ignored it and kept kissing. I angled my hips so I wasn’t pressing against Landon, because I didn’t want him to feel how excited I was. Not after I just told him I wanted us to take things slowly.
The lights in the store turned off, and Mr. Edwards hollered at us that it was time to go.
I kissed Landon one more time, and he gave my butt a quick squeeze before we straightened out our clothes and followed Mr. Edwards out the back door.
* * *
It was an uncomfortable ride home, with my messenger bag slung in front of my lap as I rode the bus.
Dad had some dinner heated up for me, and the tea ready to go. We had a two-parter to watch—“Improbable Cause” and “The Die is Cast”—and it was already late.
But I couldn’t sit still. I kept replaying the night in my head.
“Darius?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you mad at me about something?”
“What? No. Why?”
“You’re so quiet. And your leg is jiggling.”
I stilled my knee and paused the episode. “Sorry. Just, a lot happened at work. Mr. Edwards kind of offered me a job.”
“That’s terrific!” Dad pulled me in to kiss my forehead. “I’m so proud of you. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I don’t know. It still feels weird. And, well. This other thing happened too.”
“What’s that?”
I almost jiggled my leg again, but stopped myself. “Landon and I are officially boyfriends now.”
Dad leaned back to look me in the eyes.
“How does that make you feel?”
“Happy,” I said. “Really happy.”
“That’s wonderful. You deserve to be happy.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
I hit play, and we finished the episodes, and I kept my hands folded across my lap, because I kept thinking about Landon.
I really needed to go number three.
I usually did it before bed, and sometimes in the mornings, too, after my run. Well, most mornings, if I’m being honest.
Ever since Dr. Howell had changed my prescription, it was like my sex drive had gone from impulse to warp.
I wondered if other guys felt this way.
I wondered if Landon did.
I wondered what it was that made me imagine Landon touching me when I masturbated, but cringe when he reached below my waist in real life.
That’s normal.
Right?