The Pairing

(Theo’s Version)

The first time I kiss Kit, he tastes like jalape?os and apricots.

We’re drunk enough to be brave. Some guys from the restaurant have thrown a Halloween party at their rental house in Cathedral City, and there is a trash can full of mystery punch, and we’re twenty-two, the age at which trash-can punch sounds genius instead of evil. I did add a few glugs of apricot brandy from the liquor shelf to take the edge off, at least.

For the last four months since Kit moved to Palm Springs and in with me, we’ve been talking Halloween costumes. Slutty M it was the promise. When we were fourteen, a year after Kit’s mom died, his dad decided to move the whole family to New York. Kit and I got out a map and found the midpoint between Rancho Mirage and Brooklyn. Oklahoma City. We promised to meet there every summer, but I always found excuses not to go, and they were never that good.