“Look,” Jem said, “this isn’t working.I appreciate that you included us.I don’t think it’s a good fit.Thanks for, you know, inviting us.”
“No,” Brigitte said.“Please don’t leave.I want to talk to you.I do.Let me get Gerald settled with his dinner, and we can talk.”
“I don’t think—”
“You can wait in the bar.Have something to eat.You can charge it to our room, twenty-seven.You have to eatsomething.” When Jem didn’t say anything, she added, “Please, it’s the least I can do.”
Jem glanced at Tean; the doc’s dark expression gave nothing away except a familiar layer of concern.
“We can only stay for a few minutes,” Jem said.“We’ve got a long drive home.”
“That’s okay,” Brigitte said.She blinked tears away, but she was smiling.“That’s wonderful.I won’t be long; let me just make sure Gerald has everything he needs.”
She hesitated, and for a moment, Jem was sure she was going to hug him or kiss his cheek or something.Her hand opened, turned toward him, like she might press his fingers in hers.And then her smile quickened with something like embarrassment, and she hurried back into The Fjall Club.
Once she was gone, Jem rubbed his eyes.Tean was still clutching his hand.
“You think I made a mistake,” Jem said.
“No.”
“You think I should have told her no.You think we should leave.”
“Jem, I don’t think anything except that I want you to be okay.I’m sorry that happened in there.”
“You’re sorry?God, Tean,I’msorry.That guy doesn’t like that I’m gay, but hehatesyou.”
“I don’t think it was personal.A lot of people in the church find it…difficult to interact with people who have left.”
Jem grunted.“I need a drink.”
Tean nodded.
“And cheesy fries.”
“I’m not sure—”
“And I’m ordering every dessert they have.And a steak.And chicken tenders.”
“Okay, well, maybe we can look at the menu first.”
“It’s a bar, babe.They’re going to have chicken tenders.”
The name of the bar was Afterski, and it was located on the opposite side of the lobby.When they stepped inside, the roar of voices was deafening, competing with unidentifiable music blasting from speakers overhead.Men and women crowded the bar, filled the floor, and mobbed every table.Some of them were still in their ski gear, red-cheeked and fresh from the slopes.Others were dressed in casual-but-expensive clothes—the kind of people you’d expect in a commercial for a ski lodge: attractive, wealthy, and annoying.
Jem towed Tean by the hand into the crowd.Like most crowds, it was worse than it looked, and Jem navigated his way through the press of bodies.It got trickier near the bar—a drunk twentysomething in athleisure gear stepped backward onto Jem’s foot, and then she burst into racking sobs; a man with a lantern jaw elbowed past Jem in a rush; a woman with what Jem could only think of assad mom eyesbumped into him as she was carrying drinks, and she mouthed an apology—but it was more about timing than anything else, and once a spot cleared, Jem slipped into it, with Tean pressed up against his side.Both bartenders were at the other end of the bar, one of them mixing a drink, the other working the register.
Propping himself on one arm—ready to signal as soon as they glanced his way—Jem said, “Did you hear her?That stuff about making sure he eats?”
Tean cupped a hand to his ear.
“It’s weird she has to get his dinner!”Jem shouted.
Tean made a face and nodded.
One of the bartenders—a young woman, Black, her hair short—glanced over, and Jem held up his hand.But the woman moved over to an older couple and started chatting with them.
She had to make sure he got his dinner.That’s what she’d said.He was, what?Seventy?Seventy years old, and he needed her to get him his fucking dinner.And she did it.That was the nut-buster.She was probably in there right now, cutting up his vegetables so he’d eat them like a good boy.
