“I wonder why she’d call him.”
“She doesn’t hate us, you know.”
“She just never wants to see us again.”
His laugh sounded strained. “Yeah, exactly. Her dad’ll pay a price for siding with protestors though. Especially now that T*ump’s taken over MPD. Oh, did you see the Sandwich Guy mural?” This was the guy who got arrested for throwing a foot-long sub at a federal agent. Tristan showed the mural, and I laughed, delighted.
Tristan pushed the cake toward me. “This shit was thirty-two dollars in case you were wondering.”
I smiled. “What? No candles?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the most beautiful candles. Long and slender, a rose-gold color you might find in a moneyed church, too regal for this tiny falling-apart kitchen. He lit them with alighter. It took me a while to blow them out. He joked about needing to get my lungs checked. Then we stared at the cake, avoiding each other’s eyes. Tendrils of smoke curled slow and white from the candles’ tips, our faces obscured by a thin, swirling veil.
“I thought about what I’d say when I saw you again.” I met his eyes, crossing my legs, nervous. “But now, now I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to say anything,” he said. “We can just eat.”
I found us forks. We didn’t cut the cake, just ate it whole. It was fluffy and rich, a sweet antidote to the coffee’s bitterness. Tristan got a dab of frosting on his chin. I reached across the table and thumbed it away.
My phone rang. It was Jay. Seeing my face, Tristan said, “It’s all right. Answer it.”
At first I put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Happy birthday.” Jay’s voice was raspy with sleep.
“Thank you. Thank you for the cake too. I… I love it.”
“Ah, so the delivery man made it.”
I put the phone on speaker.
Tristan said, “Milkman, you owe me sixteen bucks. Plus tax for sending me into the big cat’s den.”
“That’s all? I’ll send you eighteen if you ask nicely.”
“What’s with the milkman thing?” I asked. “I never got it.”
Tristan said, “When we were in fifth grade…”—leaning into the phone—“Was it fifth grade?”
“Sixth.”
“In sixth grade—remember those little cartons of milk they had at lunchtime? They had those here, right? Well, Jay had like a chocolate milk trafficking ring—”
“This is an exaggeration, but go on.”
“It is not an exaggeration. Basically if you had chocolate milk, it went to Jay or you were in big trouble. One day, his stomach had had enough and he threw up in the middle of the cafeteria.” Tristan pantomimed it for me. “Like a horror movie exorcism.”
Jay said, “Thus, the nickname Milkman.”
I said, “I thought you were lactose intolerant this whole time.”
“Well, I am now.”
We all laughed, and then the laughter petered out. Jay said he was going to go back to sleep since it was only eight there. I told him I loved him, a habit, a truth. He said it back like we’d never stopped, and maybe we hadn’t. When we hung up, Tristan said he’d better go too. My heart plummeted from its high. But I simply thanked him and walked him to the door.
“We should do this again,” I said.
