Hey call me when you get this
it’s kind of important
like right when you wake up, before you make tea
okay sleep well dude
CALL ME
Farzan rubbed his eyes. His mouth tasted like cotton. He hadn’t had anything to drink last night, not even a glass of wine when he got home, but he still felt like he had a hangover.
A hangunder. That’s what it was. A hangunder.
Better than calling it what it truly was: the footsteps of his forties creeping steadily nearer.
Farzan wasn’t actually too bothered by getting older. When he thought of all his queer elders who didn’t survive to old age, he reminded himself that every day wasn’t just a gift but a victory. Still, he wouldn’t mind if his knees popped a bit less, or he woke up without feeling like a dried-out washcloth.
He pulled on a tank and shorts and chugged a glass of water before finally FaceTiming Arya.
“Hey. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
Farzan snorted. “You didn’t. My phone buzzing twelve million times did.”
“Good. Listen, we’ve got a situation.” Arya sipped his mug of herbal tea—he never drank caffeine—and blinked as he processed Farzan’s sarcasm. “Dude, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s all good. I needed to get up anyway.” Farzan scratched at his chest, where some of his salt-and-pepper chest hair was spilling out the top of his tank. “What’s going on?”
“Bryce tore their rotator cuff.”
Fuck. Bryce was their kickball team’s third base.
“Are they okay?”
“Yeah, but they obviously can’t play.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. If we can’t field another player we’re going to have to forfeit.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Farzan spat. They were playing against their rivals, the Lawrence Gryphons, another all-queer team. Yes, they really spelled it that way, with aph, because the Gryphons were a bunch of pretentious KU hippies. (Granted, Ramin had also gone to KU, but Ramin was neither pretentious nor a hippie.)
Worse, the Gryphons were a bunch of copycats: they had clearly borrowed the Lions’ logo and stuck a pair of Jayhawk wings on it.
“Agreed,” Arya said. “But I’ve already called every queer I know.”
“Everyone?”
Arya rolled his eyes. “Everyone I know by name instead of dick.”
“What about Ramin?”
Arya bit his lip. “He said, if we absolutely couldn’t find anyone else, he’d try. But you know how he is.”
Farzan did. Ramin came to their games to cheer for them (and Todd, who played first base), but he didn’t like playing team sports. Probably some lingering trauma from high school, if Farzan had to guess. Hell, hedidn’thave to guess. High school was brutal.
Ramin had gotten into yoga about five years ago and insisted that was enough exercise for him.
“Fine,” Farzan said. “Let me think. I’ll let you know.”
