“They just opened one in Astoria!”
Theo tilted his head.
“And how far is Astoria from Greyfin Bay?”
The giggles finally disappeared. Mae messed with the hem of her skirt.
“About three hours.”
“Theo,” Ozzy said. “We hardly even go to bars anymore.”
“I know, I know.” Theo waved off his partner. “We’re boring as shit now. But…” He looked Mae in the eye. “I love you, Mae. Honestly, it sounds brave as fuck. And we all know you’d create an incredible space. I just promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t live somewhere where there weren’t at least places I could go to feel safe when I needed them. And I can’t lie and say it doesn’t make me nervous, watching you do this. Especially right now.”
The rest of the table laid in wait, watching Theo and Mae.
A lump rose in Mae’s throat, as sudden and true as the laughter.
“I know,” she whispered. Because she did. And she knew Theo knew. He’d been raised in a small town in Georgia; their connection to the South was one of Mae’s favorite things about their friendship. He knew the realities of being queer in a small town.
And they all knew how conservatives had weaponized the fear of queerness, of transness, over the last few years. How effective it had been. How effective it had always been.
How it made every fear in the back of every queer and trans person’s own mind stand on edge. Especially in places where they didn’t have as much strength in numbers. Places like Greyfin Bay.
“But maybe,” Mae continued, “that makes doing something like this more important than ever.”
Because she knew, in that moment, just as she’d known the second she’d talked to Dell McCleary: she couldn’t show those prickles of fear about this. She was upending her entire life. She had to be all in.
And to perhaps everyone’s surprise, Theo’s eyes had turned wet as he turned away, blinking.
“Okay, girl,” he’d said, and Theo’sgirlswere always gender neutral, so Mae and Vik never took offense, “I love you so much, and I still kind of hate it, but okay.”
And Ozzy had wrapped his arm around Theo’s shoulder, the deep brown of his knuckles brushing briefly against the light brown of Theo’s forearm, before he looked at Mae and asked, “What do you need?”
Mae rested her head against Vik’s wrist now as Vik answered, as Mae knew they would: “You’re not making a massive mistake.” Vik was likely only saying it because they knew Mae needed them to say it, but it helped either way.
Vik shrugged.
“In all honesty? Even if it doesn’t work out? I’m jealous as shit about it. If I didn’t have Jackson, you know I’d be down there every weekend helping you paint the walls and buy lighting fixtures.”
“Lighting fixtures,” Mae sighed dreamily.
“Fucking lighting fixtures!” Vik huffed in annoyance. “You’re gonna buy lighting fixturesandnew plants without me.”
“I’m going to text you photos of every single one before I make any decisions.”
“Good,” Vik said. Before sighing again. “No, you should probably make some decisions without me. This is your store, Mae. You need to make it your own.”
“And I’m not…” Mae swallowed, physically willing herself to not apologize for needing this affirmation from Vik one more time. “I’m not a horrible person for even considering this. For using Jesus’s money this way.”
Technically, it was mostly Steve’s money.
Steve, love of Jesus’s life, had been both a workaholic and the inheritor of generational wealth. The lone true business gay of their group.
And he had died of a heart attack, four months before Jesus’s body gave up, too.
“That’s the beauty of it,”Jesus had said in the hospital that last day he’d been lucid, when Mae had protested his hints that this wealth would now be passed on to her.“It’s Steve’s money, really. I’m just the lucky fairy”—he had tried to do a saucy wink after he saidfairy, but the tubes running to his nose had restricted his facial movement—“who gets to distribute it.”
“Mae. Fuck no, you’re not a horrible person for following a dream you’ve had since you were nineteen.”
