Chapter 7
Then—Dante
Dante’s dad stowed the bass and rolling suitcase in the trunk of the rental SUV. His mom hadn’t let him out of her embrace since he walked through the arrivals gate.
But Dante didn’t notice. He couldn’t help seeing anything but Ellery.
Ellery and the way Casper looked at her.
He should have expected it. It wasn’t the first time a girl he’d liked had preferred his cis brother.
“Let’s go eat. We found this great place yesterday, Dante.” His dad opened the door for him, the same way he’d done when driving Dante to school when he was a kid.
Dante forced a tight smile onto his face. “Awesome.” Food was not at the top of his mind.
Casper wiggled his eyebrows in a weird, suggestive manner.
“After ship food, I bet anything is welcome.” Dante just shrugged.
Though they had been closer when they were younger, they’d drifted a bit since his transition.
Dante would reach out more, but he had difficulty coping with the different expectations his parents seemed to have for the two of them.
“Ellery?” His mom belted herself into the front passenger seat. “Do you have any food preferences?”
“I’m all set, Mrs. Baker.” Ellery slid into the middle seat, sandwiched between him and Casper.
Dante had to close his eyes. She smelled amazing, sweet and citrusy.
It was impossible to focus on anything else, not even his irritatingly perfect brother.
Maybe this wasn’t a good time to come out to Ellery.
“We are so glad to have you home, Dante,” his mom said.
Dante focused on the city of San Diego unrolling outside the window of the moving car.
Palm trees, ships, buildings, playgrounds.
How many cities had he seen now? How many countries?
Some of the trans friends he’d met through online communities said the more you run away, the more your problems weigh you down.
He hated that they were almost always right.
“Seattle hasn’t been the same,” his mother said, her voice dulling to a murmur as he stared out the window.
Ellery nudged his arm. “You’re so quiet. I thought you couldn’t wait to tell us everything that happened on the ship.”
“I guess.” His neck heated, but that was ridiculous.
He and Ellery were friends. That was what they had agreed to.
Just because he found her ridiculously attractive, it didn’t mean— “It’s all a lot.
The ship is kind of like the military, only with more customer service.
You work pretty much every day. Your time isn’t really your own.
You’re there with a bunch of people who haven’t been home in a long time.
” He shrugged. “I always take a little while to process it when a contract ends.”
His dad pulled the SUV Into a parking spot on a small, tree-lined street. “We are so proud of you. Our world traveler and musician. Now who’s ready for pancakes?”
The ache in Dante’s chest that had yawned open when he saw Casper with Ellery, eased slightly. This was his family, and they were behaving far better than when he had come out to them three years before. They had missed him, and he them. “Pancakes sound great, Dad.”
* * *
The pancakes were worth the thirty-minute wait in line, though the time passed quickly enough. His parents weren’t even bringing up the seven thousand ways Casper was better than he was.
Dante was less thrilled with his brother and the way he kept looking at Ellery. “So, how’s your girlfriend?” He cut his pancakes into tight, neat little squares.
Casper’s smile fell. “We broke up.”
“Oh.” People said twins could feel everything the other felt, even to the point where they shared some form of telepathy.
While he and Casper had made up their own language when they were toddlers, they never quite had that twin ESP.
Clearly he had missed a few things while he had been at sea.
Unfortunately, it also made Casper eligible for Ellery. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool.” Casper always shrugged off tragedy. “Things happen.”
“What happened with you two?” Ellery had ordered Swedish pancakes, lacy confections with a center of whipped cream and lingonberry jam. Dante wondered briefly what it would have been like to have eaten those with her in Sweden. There was a fantastic place in Malmo—
“We wanted different things,” Casper replied, interrupting Dante’s reverie.
He should get his head in the game. Casper clearly did. He rolled up the sleeves of his black button-down to avoid dipping the cuffs in syrup and stabbed at his vegan sausage with gusto.
Ellery nudged his leg under the table, and a thrill ran up his leg from the slight touch. “Did you get a new tattoo?”
Dante’s gaze flicked to the image on his wrist, then to Ellery. He hadn’t meant to show his parents yet. His mom had never loved the idea of tattoos. He had been so distracted by Casper and her and his parents—
His mom’s fork clattered on her plate. “You got a tattoo? Oh, Dante, no. Those follow you forever.”
“Leave him alone, Mom. Tattoos are a rock star move.” Casper punctuated his statement with a crisp bite of bacon. “He’s earned it by being awesome.”
Grimacing at the unwanted approval, Dante rubbed the words along his wrist—always me—folded into the outline of a dove.
“Sorry, Mom. The whole band got them, and I really wanted one.” She didn’t need to know that Jill’s brand-new tat was a full-color female pirate leering across her right shoulder blade.
Thankfully, he had not imbibed a gallon of vodka like she had before their visit to the tattoo parlor.
“Show me.” Sighing, his mom took his wrist and turned it over, her pretty features softening. She traced the dove with one soft fingertip. “Oh, honey, that’s beautiful.”
“It’s cool.” He tugged the sleeves of his shirt back down over his wrists. Way too much attention on way too little sleep. “What about you, Ellery? What’s new with you?”
She brightened, her eyes glowing in the cozy pancake parlor lights. “I think the Vendetta’s going to record a demo. Selene knows a producer who offered us his studio for a fraction of the usual cost.”
Dante cut into his pancakes while his mom beamed.
“That’s amazing! Which of your songs are you going to record?”
She dimmed a bit. “I don’t know. I thought maybe we would do one of our covers. Maybe Bon Jovi.”
“Why don’t you want to record your own songs?
” She had played them for him over the phone, and he’d saved the recordings in a special folder on his computer.
Of all the things he wanted to know about her, he desperately longed to know why she didn’t think her own music was good enough.
Late at night, after Jill had fallen asleep, he had lain awake, wondering.
Deep inside, did Ellery do the same thing he did?
Did they both try to convince themselves they were enough as they were?
His mother placed her coffee cup in the saucer with a porcelain clink. “Ellery, Dante sent us one or two of your songs. They’re wonderful. I’d love to hear more.”
She flushed, making her look even prettier. Dante twitched in his seat. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Baker. I don’t know. I guess it’s difficult to put so much of myself out into the world.”
His mom rubbed his shoulders, the same way she had when he was ten and come home from school distraught.
This was new too. For the first six months after he’d come out, she barely touched him.
Maybe she had been going to therapy or the PFLAG meetings he’d mentioned.
“I completely understand that. Dante’s father and I may not be creative types like you, but we know perfectly well that it’s never easy showing your true self. ”
Dante found Ellery’s gaze, and the rest of the world faded, pancake syrup and all.
There weren’t many people in the world who knew him, really knew him.
He’d always been so careful, so good at passing.
But he wanted her to know. Because if she knew and she still liked him, maybe that meant Dante could finally be happy. Not just content, but truly happy.