2
Tean winced as Daniel yanked on his hair.
“Hold still,” the boy muttered as he consulted his phone again.
Jem had been ‘explaining’ for the last hour and a half, and to judge by his tone, he was reaching his grand conclusion. “And that’s why promising them a ghost-free wedding was basically a public service.”
“But it wasn’t a public service.” Tean tried to keep his gaze on Jem as his head was jerked sideways again. “It was a private service. For money. That you took from them.”
“But I gave their money back.”
“Only because I caught you. Only because I made you.”
“Babe!”
“I think wet curls would look really cute,” Daniel announced as he pulled Tean’s hair again.
“I don’t want you lying to people to get money,” Tean said.
“Why not?” Daniel asked. “If they’re stupid enough to give it to him.”
Jem gestured toward Daniel in a way that, Tean suspected, was supposed to mean something like see?
“I don’t want you lying in general. And I definitely don’t want you lying so that we can pay for our wedding.”
“Babe, that venue wanted five dollars a person just for us to cut our own cake. The cake that we brought!”
“We’ll put it on the card—”
“You hate credit cards. You said we should never put anything on the credit card unless it’s an emergency.”
“In Personal Finance, they said credit card debt is the worst kind of debt you can have,” Daniel put in. Not—in Tean’s opinion—helpfully.
Jem waved another hand in that way that seemed to suggest Daniel was really on to something.
“We’re only getting married once—” Jem said.
“What if I gave him a haircut?” Daniel asked, pushing Tean’s hair back and studying him. “Short. Part it on the side.”
“If you cut off his hair,” Jem said, “I will murder you.”
“Jem!” Tean tried to shake his head, but Daniel had a tight grip. “I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“He’s so dramatic,” Daniel said.
This from the boy who had, the week before, said he was going to get a tattoo of Harry Styles’s face on his back.
“We’ll keep looking at venues,” Tean said. “We’ll find somewhere more affordable.”
Jem scratched his beard.
“How does that sound?” Tean asked.
“Fine,” Jem said. And he pushed out of the room.
“I know you’re going to hate this idea,” Daniel said. “But just think about it: frosted tips.”
Somehow, Tean got Daniel’s fingers free from his hair. He straightened his glasses, ignored Daniel’s alternate suggestion about trying a, quote, sassy red stripe, and went after Jem.
He found him in the living room, the TV tuned to The View, and Scipio receiving some very sulky pets.
“Can I talk to you?” Tean asked.
Jem glowered at the ladies on the television.
Tean turned off the TV. It took him two tries. And then, instead, he realized he hadn’t turned it off, but he’d somehow turned on the Apple TV instead, and Jem had to spend a couple of minutes sorting everything out.
“You have to hold this one down for, like, three seconds,” Jem explained—for what must have been the tenth time, Tean suspected. “And then you use this red button on this one to turn off the actual TV.”
Tean pushed the remotes down and said, “I’m getting the feeling that I’m not hearing something you’re trying to tell me.
And I’m also getting the feeling that you’re unhappy or stressed or something.
And I don’t want you to be unhappy about the wedding.
I don’t want you to be unhappy about anything.
So, if you will please tell me again, I will do my best to listen. ”
“It’s nothing,” Jem said. But then he flopped back on the sofa. “We’re spending so much money on this.”
“We talked about that. We agreed we wanted to have a real wedding, and that we wanted to invite people who were important to us, and that means a lot of expenses—the venue, the catering, all of it.”
“Right, I know.”
“And it’s only once, Jem. We’ll pay it off.”
“But that’s the problem. We shouldn’t have to pay it off. I should make enough money that we don’t have to put everything on stupid credit cards.” He pressed his hands over his face. “And oh my God, who am I? I love credit cards. Credit cards are the best.”
With a quiet laugh, Tean sank down onto the sofa next to him. “I’m sorry. You’ve been trying to tell me for weeks, but I thought you were worried about me worrying.”
“That is the most Tean sentence to ever Tean.”
Tean caught himself grinning. “I suppose.” As his grin faded, he ran his fingers lightly over the short hair on the side of Jem’s head. “We don’t have to have a wedding.”
Through slitted fingers, Jem said, “We’re having a wedding.”
Tean laughed again.
“You’re right,” Jem said, dropping his hands. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll find another job—just to make up the difference.”
“I don’t want you getting another job you hate.”
“Until we pay off the wedding. That’s all.”
“Jem.”
“Well, our other options are asking my mom for money—that’s a big no—or figuring out how to sell Daniel’s organs on the black market.”
“I can hear you,” Daniel sang from the bathroom. “Teancum Leon, break’s over.”
“And what is going on with Daniel and your hair?” Jem asked.
“I honestly have no idea. He asked if he could try something he saw on TikTok, and that was forty minutes ago.”
For the first time since Tean had overheard the sales pitch for the ghost-free wedding, Jem began to smile.
“Are you done yet?” Daniel asked from the hallway. He was holding a curling iron—Tean had no idea where it had come from, but it looked ominously travel-sized. Pointing the curling iron at Tean, he said, “You promised you’d help me.”
“We’re in the middle of a conversation,” Jem said. “Jesus, Daniel, read the room.”
Daniel let out a sound of disgust. He stood hipshot, and he absently flicked his hair as he glared at them. “You two are so extra. Just have a cheap wedding. That’s what everybody does in Utah. You ask your friends to help.”
Jem frowned.
Tean opened his mouth and then stopped.
“I mean,” Jem said. He paused. “We do have friends.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Tean admitted.
“Because you two are so extra,” Daniel said. And then he brightened and gave an enthusiastic wave of the curling iron. “Oh my God, Tean, I can do your hair!”