Titan’s shoulders slumped.
He nodded, but did not say a word.
“You can talk again,” Ezra said, realizing his mistake. “I just needed to make sure you heard me. You have nothing to worry about, okay?”
“Okay.”
Titan wrapped his arms around Ezra’s waist, and Ezra looped his over Titan’s shoulders. They shared a slow, meaningful kiss that would have lasted forever had it not been for the squirrel that hopped up to them, watched them curiously for a second, then flung itself at Titan and began to climb him like a tree.
Ezra yelped and toppled backward.
Titan did not.
He craned his neck in an attempt to look down his body as the squirrel ran laps around him like it was in the Daytona 500.
“Observe this small, hairy creature,” Titan said gleefully, lifting an arm so the squirrel could run up, down, and under it. “It has chosen me for its shenanigans, and this brings me much joy.”
Ezra couldn’t say he felt the same—he was going to have to hose Titan downimmediatelyafter the squirrel went on its way—but in these dark days, with an impending visit from his in-laws looming, it felt like a blessing to see Titan smile, so he snorted and let the squirrel stay.
These were the moments they had to cling to, and with a little more than a month dividing them from what promised to be a difficult time, he was going to cling hard.
And maybe invest in some calamine.
Those little fuckers were cute, but the last thing Ezra needed was to be itchy thanks to fleas.
35
Ezra
Months ago, Ezra would have said with his whole chest that there could never be a more awkward dining experience than the one he’d survived at Al and Jude’s rehearsal dinner.
Unfortunately, he had been incorrect.
Walking through a crowded supermarket naked would have been less awkward than this.
Mr. and Mrs. Leon had finally arrived, and now they—Mr. and Mrs. Leon, Titan, Al, Jude, Kyle, the kids, Corbin, and Ezra himself—were all seated around the dining room table while Ezra slowly lost his mind. Usually, avoiding a topic just made everything worse, but right then, Ezra would have loved to avoid, avoid, avoid, because from the moment they’d been dropped off by one of the nameless Men in Black, the elder Leons had been hellbent on addressing the elephant in the room.
They talked about it relentlessly.
Endlessly.
And with matching handlebar mustaches.
“You must have understanding, Ambassador Ezra,” Mrs. Leon said, her bushy upper lip bouncing as she spoke. “We still consider you to be amongst the more respectable humans?—”
“Of course, the news that you are only half human explains your superiority to the others of your species,” Mr. Leon added, dabbing his own mustache with a cloth napkin.
“—but there is slut blood inside of you, and you have now passed that slut blood down to our son’s offspring, and this is a problem of great significance that cannot be ignored.”
“I mean,” Ezra muttered, pushing peas around on his plate like a petulant child as he tried not to get frustrated, “they’re my offspring, too.”
“Yes, but you are not important, Ambassador Ezra,” Mr. Leon explained, with no trace of irony.
“Ezra is the first human to facilitate intergalactic contact with any being outside of this solar system,” Al interrupted, seeming a bit too eager to jump in and argue with his parents. “Before my entry, no other creature had ever breached Earth’s atmosphere. Ezra is doing highly proficient work in a job that did not exist prior to my arrival. How can you feel shame toward him, or think that he has unimportance?”
“Thanks, man, but you don’t hafta—” Ezra tried, but Mr. Leon spoke over him.
“You are correct, AA.??’p’Zx, that prior to your breaching of this planet’s atmosphere, the beings of Earth had no knowledge of our species. And perhaps, had you filed the proper paperwork beforehand, we would not be in need of defending your brother’s reputation.”
