“Old school. Good decision. One is not enough, and three’s a crowd.” Back in the kitchen he went.
He looked out the window at the snow coming down over the mountains. It seemed peaceful here, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of campus, or even Westchester. Gideon was going to miss Mac terribly when he went back to school on Monday. He had arranged his schedule to have no class on Fridays, and he planned to spend as many three-day weekends in West Virginia with Mac as possible. He wanted to take this semester off, but Mac wouldn’t allow it. He wasn’t going to let Gideon fall behind. He wasn’t alone in Virginia anymore. Gideon was leaving him in good hands.
“You ready, Daly clan?” Gideon ladled soup into bowls and placed them on a tray Mac’s mother had put out for him. He swung through the kitchen door butt-first and set the tray on the dining table. He passed around bowls. They poked at the matzo balls with their spoons, as if it were an alien life form. Around here, maybe everything Jewish was. Mac did find a temple on Google Maps the other day. It was only twenty-five minutes away.
“Are you ready?” Gideon asked the family. “Because once you taste matzo ball soup for the first time, there is no going back. Your life will literally never be the same.”
“You’re setting impossibly high expectations. I hope you know that,” Mac said.
“I’m preparing you for a life-changing event.”
“We’re talking about soup here,” Mac’s father said. Gideon shook his head. The poor man. He had no idea how his world was about to be rocked.
Mac carved off a slice of matzo ball with his spoon, added soup, and ingested his first taste of savory goodness. “Shit,” he said as if he just came.
Matzo ball soup was even better than sex.
Well, almost better.
They were in two separate universes and couldn’t justly be compared, but they were both of superior quality.
Even frozen and shipped across state lines, the matzo ball soup was as good as Gideon remembered. His mom had told him that Christina wanted to learn how to make it.
“This is wonderful,” Mac’s mother said. Mac’s father was already down to just one ball.
Gideon didn’t have words. Each word he spoke would be another second his taste buds couldn’t indulge.
“How did she learn how to make this? Is there a recipe online?” His mother asked.
“Nope. Passed down.”
“I wonder how she gets the matzo balls so big and almost fluffy.”
“Why peek behind the curtain?”
“These matzo balls are very good.” His dad pronounced itmahzzuh. He sliced himself half of his wife’s ball.
Mac squeezed Gideon’s knee under the table. The bruising on Mac’s face was fading away, but it didn’t matter. He was as handsome as ever. Those brown eyes still radiated warmth. Gideon told him that his scars would make him look dangerous and extra sexy. He rubbed Mac’s hand, over the table, in plain sight. Neither parent flinched.
“Is there enough for seconds?” his dad asked.
Φ
Later that night, Gideon helped Mac with his physical therapy at home stretches. It involved pulling his legs and arms with a thick rubber band to increase flexibility. Gideon didn’t want him to fall behind in his therapy. He was going to be worried and overbearing, just like his mother.
“So I was thinking,” Mac said. He stretched his arm out and then in. “I wonder if you’re right.”
“About what?” Gideon sipped on a Sprite.
“Was I out of my mind for thinking we could be friends?”
“I think we’ve proven that wasn’t true.”
Mac squinted his eyes. “I’m not so sure. I mean, we’re dating now. Romance and attraction got in the way.”
“But maybe we weren’t a proper example. I’m gay, after all. So there was never a straight guy in the equation, technically. What about Seth? We’re both friends with him.”
“But nobody wants to have sex with Seth except for Delia.” Mac put the rubber band around his ankles and stretched his left leg, then right, to the side.
