“So I’ve gathered.” He drops my hand, arms folding across his chest. He’s in a white tee dotted with paint splatters, his jeans worn soft at the knees, and there’s a faint scar arcing above his left brow like a comma. He looks like he’s trying very hard not to be here right now.
I ping-pong a glance between them. “So, are you two…?” I wave vaguely, like that clears it up.
Cori bursts out laughing. “Me and Marcus? Oh, no.Hellno.”
“She wishes,” Marcus says flatly.
“He’s gay,” Cori adds, still grinning.
“Oh,” I nod, aiming for breezy. “Cool.”
Marcus raises an eyebrow, his scowl sharpening. “Is that a problem?”
“What?No!Of course not.” The words suddenly come out too fast, too defensive, and I feel my face heat up. “I love gay people! Seriously. Wait, that came out wrong—not like, possessively or anything. Just, I have zero issues. None. Why would I? Love’s love, right? And some of my absolute favorite people are gay. Not that I’m collecting them or tokenizing—I just mean, it’s great! Being gay is great—” I’m rambling now. I can feel it happening and yet I can’t stop. “Not that it needs my thumbs-up or anything! Obviously, it definitely doesn’t. I’m just saying, I’mverysupportive. Of the community. The parades. And the rights.Allthe rights, of course.”
Cori’s cackling now, wiping tears at the corners of her eyes, and even Marcus’s fortress of surliness cracks—a reluctant, undeniable twitch at the corner of his mouth, a dimple flashing briefly in his cheek before he schools his features.
“Okay, okay,” he says, holding up a hand. “We get it. You’re ally of the year. Gold star. Take a breather.”
“I’m shutting up now,” I mumble, pressing my hands to my face.
“No, please, keep going,” Cori wheezes, a grin plastered to her face. “That was gold.”
Marcus shakes his head at her but his hostility has thawed, replaced by a genuine curiosity. “You’re not from here, are you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“A little bit,” Cori says, still laughing a bit as she leans her elbows on the counter. “Where are you from, Annie Collier?”
“California.”
“California!” Cori’s eyes practically sparkle. “Like,Baywatch? LA? Do you have a surfboard? Are you secretly a mermaid?”
“Near there, yeah. And sadly, no tail.”
Marcus, who has resumed his position as a brooding column against the counter, studies me. “That’s a hell of a trek. What brings a West Coast girl all the way to the gritty heart of New York City?”
I hesitate. I can’t exactly say,Well, Marcus, I just dumped my fiancé and as it turns out, I’m currently hiding from the tabloids and my family and my entire life.Something tells me that’s not a very appropriate icebreaker. So I go with the next best truth, the one that doesn’t make me sound like a fugitive. “I just needed a change,” I say, and even to my ears, it sounds like a line from a bad coming-of-age movie. “California felt…small.”
“Small,” Marcus repeats, his voice dry enough to cause a brush fire. “Right. Because when I think of the literal third-largest state in the union, I think ‘claustrophobic.’”
“I just wanted to try something new,” I say, trying to play it cool even though my heart is gradually picking up speed. “New city, new people. Fresh start all around.”
Cori nods, reaching out to pat my hand. “Well, you picked the perfect spot. New York’s basically the capital of fresh starts. Everyone here is running from something or toward something else.”
“Are you guys from here?” I ask, pivoting the conversation with the grace of a gazelle escaping a predator.
“Born and raised,” Cori says proudly. “Queens. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Been stuck with this guy since the seventh grade.”
“She followed me around like a lost puppy,” Marcus chimes in.
“In your dreams, Silva,” Cori swats him. “He was the weird kid who sat in the back of the cafeteria drawing skulls and shit in a notebook. I felt a moral obligation to save him from himself.”
“You did not,” Marcus retorts. “You thought I was mysterious and cool.”
“You werenotcool,” Cori laughs. “You had that ugly bowl cut and glasses that took up half your face.”
“I was extremely cool,” Marcus insists, but there’s a grin tugging at his lips now.
