“Oh, stop! I’m barely late,” she protested.
“You’re the first of the tardy gang, in any case,” Bart said, although he didn’t sound the least bit upset about it.
“Anna, this is my friend Gavin Aberlour.” Bart waved a hand in Aberlour’s direction.
“Heck of a mouthful! Nice to meet you,” she said with a charming smile.
Aberlour liked her instantly.
“I’m Anna, best friends with this asshole since 2nd grade when he poured a vanilla pudding cup over Evelyn Dumphrey’s hair,” she told him.
Aberlour shot Bart a surprised look and chuckled.
“She deserved it,” Bart nodded approvingly.
Anna, or A, as Bart called her, was a florist with her own little shop off Main Street. She had just recently broken up withher girlfriend, and was entering her hot girl summer era, which Bart said would probably only last half a week.
“Lesbians,” he’d said, snorting derisively. “They meet, fall in love, adopt a cat, U-Haul into each other’s lives only to break up before the month is up.”
Aberlour had expected Anna to put up a good argument, but she’d just shrugged and agreed.
The next to show up had been Dollie, who, if Aberlour was keeping up, was actually Bart’s friend from high school. They’d reconnected in college, and Bart had helped Dollie through her transition. She was a trans woman, and her conservative parents had not been, to put it simply, “down with it.”
Aberlour had smiled and pretended to understand the words being thrown around.
Then Riley and Paul arrived, and Aberlour had officially lost the plot of the entire day.
Pansexual, demi-sexual, polyamorous, trans, FTM, MTF, top surgery. It was like, all at once, Aberlour had lost the ability to speak English. He’d participated as best he could but had fumbled like an idiot anytime a question was asked.
“What are your pronouns?” Riley asked, after mentioning that theirs were they/them.
He’d stared at them, then kicked Bart in the shin for help.
“Aberlour’s a little new to the game, I think he/him pretty much sums it up,” he’d said and Aberlour had felt like kissing him.
“Sorry,” Aberlour apologized, hoping not to offend anyone.
“Hell no, no sorry needed! You’re here! That’s amazing,” Riley said reassuringly, shooting Aberlour a glittery wink.
Riley was a gender-fluid attorney, and their partner, Paul, was an accountant.
“We wear beige, grey, and pastel all week, so we go big on the weekends,” Riley explained, gesturing to the purple sequins on their crop top.
“Same,” Aberlour had said, gesturing to his own shirt, which was—predictably—black.
That had gotten a laugh from the whole table.
“Do you have a partner, Aberlour?” Paul had asked him, a few minutes before the show had begun. Aberlour was nursing his third mimosa, which was already halfway done. He was feeling no pain at this point.
“Partner?” he asked, taken back for a moment. He’d been listening to one of Riley’s stories about their job in the city.
“You know, like a boyfriend or girlfriend.” Paul was a good-looking guy, maybe a few years older than everyone else at the table. He looked Middle Eastern, with kind eyes that displayed keen intelligence, and he didn’t shy away from maintaining eye contact.
“Oh, sorry, in my line of work, partner usually means something else. No, I’m single.”
It felt good to have the option. He thought of Oli—he often did, although he’d rather not admit to it—and how startled he would have been by such a question.
“Line of work? I thought you owned a booth next to Bart—do you have a co-owner?” Paul asked, looking baffled.
