“Can I sit?” I ask, gesturing to the ottoman beside her chair.
“Of course, of course.” She pats the spot emphatically. “Sit, sit. Tell me everything. How’s the club? How’s Sin? How’s that girl you’ve been secretly seeing?”
I nearly choke on air. “Marley?”
Her eyes, still sharp despite being eighty-six, narrow at me. “Don’t you dare try to play coy with me, Damon Blackwell. You think I don’t notice when you’re walking around with that dopey look on your face? You think I don’t see the way you check your phone every five seconds like you’re waiting for a message from the president?”
Busted.
Completely, utterly busted by an eighty-six-year-old woman who can still read me like a book.
“It doesn’t feel fake anymore, Queenie. It hasn’t felt fake for a while, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
Queenie sets her flowers down on the side table and reaches for my hand. Her grip is surprisingly firm, fingers wrapping around mine with the kind of certainty that comes from eight decades of living.
“That girl is special,” she says, her voice soft but firm. “Don’t let fear keep you from happiness, honey.”
“There’s a fourteen-year age gap,” I say, voicing the concern that’s been eating at me. “She’s twenty-nine. I’m forty-three. She’s barely been broken up with her ex for a few weeks, and I’m already falling for her like some kind of—”
“Age is just a number, Damon,” Queenie cuts me off with a dismissive wave. “You know what matters? The way you light up when you talk about her. The way you check your phone, hoping it’s her. The way you say her name like it’s something precious.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s what matters. Not the years between you.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” Her voice takes on that tone, the one that brokered no arguments when I was a kid and certainly doesn’t now. “Do you care about her?”
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy, impossible, and terrifyingly simple.
Do I care about her?
More than I should?
I think about Marley’s laugh, the way it sounds like summer, sunshine, and everything good I thought I’d never deserve. I think about her quirky glasses, her vintage band T-shirts, and the way she sees beauty in things other people overlook. I think about how she fits against my side when we walk, how her hand feels in mine, how kissing her felt like coming home after years of being lost.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, the admission feeling like jumping off a cliff. “Yeah, everything inside me wants to protect her, to comfort her, to show her what she’s worth.”
Queenie’s smile could light up the whole damn state. “Then stop thinking and start doing something about it, you big idiot. Tomorrow at that gala, you tell her. You tell her everything… about who youreallyare, about how you feel, about how you want this to be real. And if she runs, then she wasn’t the right one. But something tells me she won’t run, my sweet boy.”
“You think?” The question comes out more vulnerable than I intended, but this is Queenie, and I can be vulnerable with her.
“I know.” She pats my cheek as if I’m still eight years old and scraped my knee. “Now, I want to meet this girl soon. Bring her by for Sunday dinner. I want to look her in the eye and make sure she’s good enough for my grandson.”
A laugh bubbles up from my chest, genuine and relieved. “You’re on.”
“Good. Now play your flute and stop moping. You’re making the other residents nervous with all that brooding.”
I stand, pressing another kiss to her forehead. “Love you, Queenie.”
“Love you, too, honey. Now go on, get. Go make some music.”
The common room has filled up while I was talking to Queenie. Every chair and wheelchair are occupied, residents settling in for the show as if they were at Carnegie Hall instead of a retirement village. The brothers have taken their positions. Ghost is helping Mr. Morrison with his laptop in the corner, Bear is setting up an easel for Mrs. Applebaum, Koa is demonstrating something with his hands to a small crowd of interested residents.
And Sin? He’s standing off to the side with his arms crossed, watching everything with that presidential assessment he carries off so well. But when he catches my eye, he gives me a single nod. It’s subtle, but I know what it means.
I’ve got your back, brother. Whatever you need.
Ro is already setting up her amp, grinning at the residents as though she’s about to rock their world. Which, to be fair, she is. Older people here have learned to love our monthly performances, classical music with rock flair, the kind of unexpected fusion that shouldn’t work but somehow does.
I pull out my flute case, the weight familiar in my hands. This instrument has been with me since I was eight years old. Through Queenie’s cancer diagnosis, through losing my parents, through joining the club and building an empire, and trying tofigure out who the hell I am when I’m living three different identities.
