Chapter 2
Chapter two
The first sip of the whiskey cider tasted like drinking hot cider by a bonfire with the trees in peak color change.
Ash set their drink down on the bar. “It’s like drinking fall.”
Luke let out a low chuckle. “I take it you like it?”
“I do.” Ash nodded. “There’s nothing better than the fall. The leaves changing, temperatures cooling, pumpkin-flavored things, apple cider donuts.”
“Have you gone to the cider house in town?” Luke asked.
Ash cocked their head to the left. “No. Where is it?”
“Down in Endicott—there’s a cider house with the best apple cider donuts. They are only open from August to November.”
Ash whipped out their phone. “I’m going to forget everything you just said; what is this place called?”
“I think it’s the Cider Mill,” Luke said. “You can’t miss it. It’s a huge red barn on the side of the road. If you drive past it and don’t find it, I’d be impressed.”
Ash let out a breathy laugh. “Thank you for the recommendation.”
“Seeing as you don’t know the Cider Mill, you must not be local. Let me give you the list of all the best places in town you can’t miss.”
Luke rattled off restaurants, shops, and hiking trails, half of which Ash had never heard of.
Some were iconic staples, like Garage Taco Bar and Lost Dog, that they had been to.
But there were a few restaurants—like Spice of India and Big Dipper Barbecue—that they had never even heard of.
Luke told Ash about a metaphysical shop downtown they somehow had never noticed, despite their love of a good tarot reading.
He spoke highly of two hiking trails, both within twenty minutes of the university, but Ash wasn’t the outdoorsy type.
When they weren’t in the lab, Ash was usually playing games with their friends or sleeping—nothing beat a good four PM nap.
But Ash politely wrote the hiking trails down, just in case.
Maybe they would meet someone who needed a good place to hike.
“Have you ever been to Jupiter Games?” Ash asked Luke as they slid their phone back into the front pocket of their jeans.
Luke furrowed their brow. “I don’t think so—what and where is that?”
“Do you know Piccolo’s diner?”
“Of course,” Luke scoffed.
“If you turn left out of there, about five minutes down the road, there is a board game shop, Jupiter. Their top floor is a shop—they have eclectic board games, Dungeons and Dragons books, and Magic: The Gathering cards. In the basement, there’s a whole bunch of tables where you can play the games they have.
Sometimes, they have events there, but most of the time, it’s just people playing board games.
” Ash and their friends spent many late nights playing games at Jupiter while their peers were dancing at the clubs.
Luke nodded slowly. “Magic: The Gathering? Is that, like, magician shit?”
Ash couldn’t contain the laugh that burst from their chest. “Sorry,” they said between giggles. “No. It’s a card game. I like to describe it as a game of logic, resources, and math, all wrapped in fantasy.” Ash briefly explained the different types of cards to Luke.
“It sounds like Pokémon.”
Ash sighed. “I don’t want to agree with you, but that’s a fair comparison.”
Luke smiled down at Ash. “I never played Pokémon.” Luke called the bartender over. “Can I get a whiskey sour? And…” Luke gestured to Ash.
Ash picked up their whiskey cider—they had barely drank half of it. “I’ll do one of the vodka pink lemonades.”
“Do you do shots?” Luke asked.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Ash asked with a laugh. “Yes, I do shots. Tequila?”
Luke scrunched his nose and pulled in his lips. “Must I?”
Ash laughed. “Dealer’s choice, then.”
“Two shots of tequila, but not the cheap shit. Give us Patrón.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’m fine with the cheap shit,” Ash said as the bartender disappeared to make their drinks.
“If I’m drinking tequila, it has to be worth it. I don’t normally splurge, but…when I’m talking to an attractive person, I can’t help myself.”
A slow smile spread across Ash’s lips. It wasn’t every day a cute guy in a bar used gender-neutral language without prompting. Every time Ash was referred to properly by a stranger, it made their heart skip.
“Well, thank you. I don’t know if I’ve ever had Patrón.”
The bartender appeared at that moment with their drinks and placed two shots of tequila beside two wedges of lime and a salt shaker.
Ash reached for the salt shaker and brushed their hand over Luke’s.
Ash’s first instinct was to recoil, but they kept their pinkie finger against the back of Luke’s hand for just a second before finishing their reach for the salt.
Ash licked the space between their thumb and forefinger, poured out some salt, and handed the shaker over to Luke.
Luke locked his gaze on Ash as he slowly licked his hand and layered it in salt.
Ash’s breath caught in their throat—was this really happening?
Luke reached for his shot and lime, holding the glass in his salted hand. Ash did the same and held their shot glass towards Luke.
“Cheers.” Ash and Luke’s glasses clinked as they met before they both licked the salt off their hands, hit their glasses on the bar, and tipped the shot back.
The tequila slid down Ash’s throat and didn’t burn quite as much as the cheap tequila they usually drank.
When Ash bit down on their lime, they turned their gaze to Luke, who was gripping the edge of the bar counter and taking a large sip of his mixed drink.
“You really aren’t a tequila guy, are you?” Ash set their shot glass back down. “Oh shit, wait—what are your pronouns?”
“He and him,” Luke said, a little breathless. “What are yours?”
“They and them,” Ash said. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”
“I didn’t ask you either,” Luke acknowledged.
“You used gender-neutral language before,” Ash started. “How did you know?”
Luke lightly touched the back of Ash’s right bicep. “I noticed your nonbinary tattoo.”
“I didn’t realize you could see it past my sleeve in this shirt.”
“Can I?” Luke asked, toying with the sleeve.
When Ash nodded, Luke tenderly rolled it up to their shoulder and traced the lines of Ash’s tattoo with a feather-light touch.
He traced down one side of the double helix that faded from yellow to white, then up the side from black to purple.
The base pairs of the DNA tattoo went in order of the nonbinary flag from top to bottom.
“I got it when I came out,” Ash said as a shiver ran down their back from Luke’s touch. They didn’t know why they were admitting this to a stranger. “About four years ago.”
“It’s really well done,” Luke said, still admiring the ink. “Did you design it?”
Ash shook their head. “My artist is non-binary. Ze did a Friday the thirteenth flash, and this was one of the designs.”
“I really like it.”
“Thank you. Do you have any tattoos?”
He nodded. “I do, but I mostly like it because I have a PhD in biology.”
“Oh, wow! I just graduated with my PhD in chemistry.”
Luke’s fingers stilled over Ash’s arm. “Congratulations. Wasn’t defending your dissertation just…” Luke trailed off, as if searching for the right words.
“Fucking awful?” Ash offered.
Luke broke out into laughter. “Yes. Fucking awful.”
“What was your dissertation on?”
“RNA sequencing of biomarkers for thyroid cancer. What was yours?”
Ash blinked rapidly. “I modeled the binding interactions between thyroid cancer biomarkers for novel detection methods.”
Luke stared at Ash for several long seconds before replying. “That’s fascinating.”
Ash picked up their whiskey drink and realized, sadly, that they had finished it. They cracked open the vodka pink lemonade can and took a tentative sip. The sweetness cut the sharp bite of vodka Ash hated, and they couldn’t even taste the alcohol. This drink was dangerous…
“So you said you had tattoos,” Ash asked as they drank. “What and where are they?”
A ghost of a smile brushed across Luke’s lips.
He pulled up the short sleeve of his t-shirt to his shoulder, pulling it back so Ash could see his muscled arm in all its glory.
From his shoulder down the top half of his bicep was the beginning of a black and white tattoo sleeve.
Intricate designs of various molecules weaved around an atom.
Ash could pick out oxytocin, adrenaline, dopamine, several benzenes, and caffeine, but others were lost on them.
A double helix curved over his shoulder and disappeared under his shirt.
“I just started the sleeve a few months ago, but I want to do it in pieces. Tattoos are expensive.” Luke slid the shirt back into place.
“It’s stunning. Are you doing a full science sleeve? What else do you want to add?”
Luke nodded. “I plan to. I want to do a couple of planets, or maybe some moon phases. I want to represent all the different branches of science. I struggled to decide on biology—I was interested in so many different branches of science. The first two years of undergrad, I didn’t pick a major and took different science classes.
Eventually, I decided on biology, but astronomy was a very close second. ”
Ash wanted to say they understood, but in truth, they didn’t.
They had been drawn to chemistry since they were sixteen.
Their high school teacher purposefully lit her desk on fire on the first day of school, and Ash was hooked.
"I took one astronomy class my freshman year. It definitely was not for me.”
Luke opened his mouth to respond just as the bar quieted for a second, and Ash’s stomach decided that was an appropriate time to grumble loudly. The red flush of embarrassment crept up Ash’s neck, burning their cheeks. It was almost worse than their stomach grumbling during class. Almost.
Luke gave Ash a smile. “Do you want to get something to eat? I know a great place around the corner with the best drunk food.”
Ash nodded. “Absolutely I do.”