I walked back to the table, overjoyed, and saw Taylor had shown up and was sitting with his brother.
“Did you get the job?” Taylor asked, looking amused. Thiago was trying to smile along with him, but a shadow had fallen over his face.
“I think so!” I said, approaching them. “When did you get here?”
“While you were over there talking.” He reached up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into his lap. With his brother there, that show of affection felt strange, and I wanted to get up, but I knew that would hurt Taylor’s feelings.
“I see you two are talking again,” Taylor said, looking back and forth between Thiago and me.
“When you’re bored, I guess any ear will do, right?” his brother responded, closing his laptop and gathering his things. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait, don’t go,” his brother said, forcing a smile. “Does this mean we’re all friends again? Because no one informed me.”
“Taylor…” I tried to butt in.
“We’re all friends,” his brother announced abruptly. “I need to go, though. Is that OK?” He suddenly looked bored.
“Stick around for a while. It won’t kill you to hang out with your brother and his girlfriend, will it?”
Oh, Taylor, won’t you please shut up!
Thiago sat down and observed us the way someone might stare at a painting.
“So it’s official now? You’re boyfriend and girlfriend?”
We’d never actually talked about it. People just assumed, and we hadn’t corrected them.
“Seems like it,” Taylor said and squeezed my waist. In the ensuing silence, I got an uneasy feeling and wished I could think of something to say to make the situation less awkward. But Taylor beat me to it. “I’ve got an idea!” He smiled. “Remember that time capsule we buried in the yard way back when?”
Thiago tensed up the way he always did when we talked about the old days. “What about it?” he asked, toying with the sugar shaker on the table.
“We should dig it up!”
Thiago put the shaker down and stood. “Sorry, no time.”
“Come on, Thiago!”
Looking at the two brothers, I remembered that day as though it were yesterday. We had grabbed our favorite things and stuck them in a metal box we’d bought at the hardwarestore. And we’d each written a note we were supposed to read ten years later.
“We agreed we’d wait ten years. It’s only been eight,” Thiago said.
“Who cares?” Taylor objected. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Even I liked the idea. “Why don’t we wait and do it on the night of the Halloween party?” I suggested. “We buried it on Halloween, right? So it’ll be like an anniversary.”
“Yeah,” Taylor responded, clearly happy I was enthusiastic about it too.
Thiago wasn’t, though. His mood had gone from skeptical to hostile, or so I thought until his frown turned into a grin and he grumbled, “You two are still a couple of babies. But fuck it. I’ll go just to make sure you don’t dig the hole too deep and fall in.”
Taylor and I laughed.
“Friday at seven, by the tree house then?” Taylor said.
Thiago and I both nodded. I felt the same excitement from long ago at the thought of a new adventure. But this time, it would be with two incredibly attractive guys. And I had something going on with both of them. Even if I didn’t know exactly what it was.
