To be honest, he would’ve rather been impaled from behind by a ridiculously oversized katana than make one more phone call to their online reservation platform’s tech support. Literally, not euphemistically, though after the fucking David gave him yesterday…
No, nope, not thinking about that, or the chance for a repeat tomorrow when they met up for more studying. He had vendors to pay.
A knock against the office’s doorframe startled Farzan; he jerked up to find Ramin standing in the doorway.
“Oh. Sorry.” Farzan paused his music. “Hey.”
“Hey. Mind if I…?”
“No.” Farzan gestured for Ramin to step inside. Farzan really needed to get another chair in here, now that the space was slightly more organized. Instead, he came around and sat on the corner of his desk, which sent a stack of mail toppling.
Thankfully, Ramin caught it.
“You didn’t come to brunch yesterday.” Ramin handed the envelopes back. “Neither did David.”
“Yeah. We… hung out after.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ramin studied Farzan. “David seems pretty cool.”
“He is.”
“And you’re still doing okay? With this… situationship?”
Farzan chuckled.Situationshipwas very much an Arya word, not a Ramin word. Clearly they’d been talking behind his back.
“Yeah. It’s going great. He gives good advice, and he gets along with my friends.” Farzan couldn’t stop himself from blushing. “And the sex is amazing. So, yeah. I’m okay.”
Ramin nodded. “I don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t do casual.”
“This isn’t like Hector,” Farzan said, waving a hand to swat the memory away. “We both know what we’re getting into, we’re communicating, and we’re actually doing friend things, too. He and I hung out at the Nelson-Atkins when Arya bailed on me.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”
“I’m okay. Really. Anyway, how are you and Todd doing? Did you make a decision?”
A shy smile unfurled across Ramin’s lips, his dimples making an appearance. He rubbed his right thumb against the tattoo of his dad’s name. “Good. We went for a walk after brunch, just around the Plaza some, and…”
“And?”
Ramin’s ears were turning pink. “And I asked him to move in with me.”
“Really?” Farzan nearly fell over. Probably would have, if he hadn’t been leaning against his desk. “What’d he say?”
“He said yes.” Ramin’s grin was so big, so infectious, Farzan had to mirror it.
“That’s great.”
If Ramin was happy, that’s what mattered. Farzan pushed down the ache in his chest. He loved Ramin too much to be jealous. But he was allowed to be a little sad, right? Change could be sad, even if it was good, even if it meant his best friend was getting his happily-ever-after.
“I’m really happy for you,” Farzan said, and he meant it.
“Thanks.” Ramin tugged on the hem of his shirt. “Sometimes you have to take a risk, right?”
“Right,” Farzan said, but he got the uneasy feeling that they weren’t talking about Ramin and Todd anymore. He cleared his throat. “I need some tea. You got anywhere to be?”
Ramin shook his head, so Farzan led him out to the kitchen, wherethey leaned against the counter and sipped their teas. Farzan let Ramin tell him about his plans: converting part of the unfinished basement into a little home gym for Todd (and he could use it for yoga as well, instead of doing it in the living room), moving some stuff out of the bedroom into his home office so Todd could help decorate it, and maybe even turning the spare bedroom into a second office for Todd to use.
Ramin had a nice house in the Northland—not far from Shiraz Bistro, actually—that he’d bought with the inheritance from his dad. He and Arya and Farzan had spent many a night in their twenties curled up on Ramin’s couch, playingMario Kartand drinking terrible sweet cocktails and taking turns complaining about the men in their lives. As they got older, Ramin’s house had somehow become the go-to house for gatherings, probably because it was on a suburban street with easy parking.
