He smelled like Farzan.
David popped the lid off his coffee and inhaled the scent, just to reset his sinuses. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. He had way too much to deal with.
If all went well, he wouldn’t even be here come next year. Now was no time to get tied down, no matter that those brown eyes kept lingering in his mind. Eyes that had been full of heat and desire last night. Eyes full of hurt and accusation this morning.
But David hadn’t promised anything. It had just been another miscommunication, like David thinking Farzan was Frank.
There was no point in wondering about what-ifs. He needed to focus on what was.
eleven
Farzan
And then,” Farzan said dramatically, dipping his bread in the bowl of must-o-musir, a dip of tangy yogurt and salty shallots. “And then, he was like, ‘If you want to hook up again we can!’ And I didn’t know what to say—it was too early and I thought we’d had a really nice night and he was acting all weird. So I’m just standing there, naked, while he gets dressed and leaves.”
Across the table, Ramin pressed his lips together, probably holding in a chuckle. Farzan’s best friend was lighter-skinned, like a peeled almond, with bright green eyes, a large Iranian nose, and dimples that Farzan would’ve been jealous of if Ramin was a stranger instead of a brother in all but name. He kept his black hair short and parted on the right, sharp and professional. “That sounds like something out of a movie.”
“Yeah,Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” Arya said. “Kristen Bell broke up with Jason Segel while he stood there totally nude, thinking they were gonna have sex.”
Farzan’s other best friend was even darker skinned than Farzan, though his tended more toward a warm, ruddy copper. He had thick eyebrows, a long thin nose, dark brown eyes, and no hair at all: after goingbald during college, he’d taken to shaving his head. He was rail thin, unlike Farzan, who was a little on the stocky side, or Ramin, who’d fluctuated over the years between fat and thin, but had finally (with the help of his therapist) found a healthy weight for himself. And, more important, a healthy body image.
Still, Farzan caught Arya sliding an extra piece of bread onto Ramin’s plate, and Ramin nodding a silent thanks.
“So after all that he just bounced?” Arya’s metallic teal nail polish caught the light as he swirled his wine, a cheap Washington Cab Farzan had convinced his parents to add to the wine list, because it was good bang for the buck and paired well with most everything on the menu.
“Yup.” Farzan sipped his own glass. Must-o-musir was one of the few things the Cab didn’t go with—too much acidity in the wine versus too tangy a yogurt. But all wines could be drunk with all foods, unless you were a wine snob.
Or even just an expert, like David, who’d been knowledgeable but not the least bit snobbish. Not to mention handsome, and a great cuddler, and he did this thing with his tongue where…
“I don’t blame you, though,” Ramin said, shaking Farzan out of his horny reverie. “If you’re not looking for casual, better to tell him that, before either of you gets hurt. Especially after what happened last time.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
The last time Farzan had tried doing the casual thing—a couple years ago now—he’d ended up with a broken heart and a round of antibiotics.
“Counterpoint: Hector was a lying asshole.” Arya set down his wineglass and templed his fingers, leaning in to look Farzan in the eye. “But this guy doesn’t sound like one. If the dick was good, you could’ve had a few more hookups before you canceled your subscription.”
At the table to their left, an older Iranian gentleman began coughing on his rice, while his neighbor patted his back. Farzan recognized both of them: part of the crowd of older men who came in at least twice a month, sometimes only four and sometimes as many as twelve. They’d take over some tables in the corner right at opening, eat and play Rook, and gothrough pots of tea and plate after plate of appetizers. Farzan once asked his dad why he let them keep coming back when they took up so many tables but never ordered that much.
Firouz had just said, “If I tell them to go away, who will I play cards with when I retire?”
Which was a fair point, except Farzan wasn’t certain either of his parents would ever retire.
When they’d moved to the United States after the revolution and settled in Kansas City, there hadn’t been any Iranian restaurants in town, but they’d taken a chance and opened one. And despite Farzan growing up with them complaining, at least once a week, that they were only a single bill away from filing for bankruptcy, the restaurant had survived and even thrived for over forty years in its little corner of Gladstone. It had done well enough for Firouz and Persis Alavi to raise their three children.
And it had become a cornerstone of the local Iranian community: as more and more families moved to the Kansas City area, they found familiar food, familiar language, and familiar values at Shiraz Bistro.
Farzan had spent his childhood underfoot with Arya and Ramin by his side, as their parents and Farzan’s played cards and reminisced about the Iran that no longer was, the dreams that had been stolen from their generation and the new dreams they’d created in the United States.
Dreams like seeing their children grow up and succeed in life, in love, in business.
Farzan was painfully lacking on that front, and David was just another in a long string of failures.
Once Farzan was certain he wouldn’t need to call an ambulance, or do the Heimlich—though maybe they weren’t supposed to do that anymore?—he met Arya’s eyes.
Arya just snickered, though, and even Ramin couldn’t stop a tiny smile.
When Farzan’s parents found out he was gay, they assured him they loved him no matter what, and he’d always have a place in their home and a safe space at Shiraz Bistro. And they’d kept their promise, even ifsome of the older crowd got a little uncomfortable as Arya talked way too loudly about dick.
