Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Sierra texted me on a Tuesday: Razor Braids concert. Friday. The whole crew. Bring Ellis.
Two words at the end that rearranged my entire week. Bring Ellis.
I’d been promising this for months. After our conversation in bed, after all the therapy-speak about integration and wholeness and not compartmentalizing your life into separate boxes, I’d told him I’d make it happen. And then I’d found seventeen reasons to postpone.
Not tonight, Calliope’s in a mood. Not this week, Raven’s going through something. Bad timing, Sierra’s got that photography deadline.
Ellis never pushed. That was almost worse. He’d just nod and say, “Next time” with this quiet patience that made me want to scream, because I knew what it cost him to keep swallowing that disappointment.
But now Sierra was forcing my hand, and honestly? Thank God she was.
Friday afternoon, I changed clothes four times. Four. Like I was seventeen again and about to introduce my first boyfriend to my mother, except my mother wasn’t speaking to me and these people were the family I’d chosen instead.
“The blue one,” Ellis called from my bed, where he’d been watching this disaster unfold with barely concealed amusement for twenty minutes.
“The blue one makes my shoulders look weird.”
“Your shoulders look incredible in everything. Wear the blue one.”
“You’re just saying that, darling, because you want to leave on time.”
“I’m saying it because your shoulders are perfect and I’d like to get there before the opening act finishes.” He stood up, crossed the room, and put both hands on those allegedly perfect shoulders. “They’re going to like me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know they love you, and I make you happy. The math works.”
“Calliope doesn’t believe in math. She believes in vibes and Mercury retrograde.”
“Then I’ll have good vibes.” He kissed the spot behind my ear that made my knees unreliable. “Blue shirt. Let’s go.”
We met everyone at Sierra’s apartment before the show. My palms were sweating on the subway over, which was humiliating. Ellis held my hand anyway, damp palms and all, and pretended not to notice.
Sierra opened the door, and her face split into a grin so wide it practically had its own zip code.
“Everyone.” I pulled Ellis forward with our linked hands. “This is Ellis.”
I was glowing. It radiated off me like a space heater, and I didn’t even care.
The room went quiet for approximately half a second.
Calliope blinked twice. Raven’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
Thalia, Sierra’s sister, three days deep into a crash course on Razor Braids lyrics and perched on the arm of the couch like she’d been inducted by blood oath, leaned back so fast she nearly took a throw pillow with her.
Here’s the thing about Ellis that no amount of description prepared you for.
The man looked like a Greek statue that had decided mortal life seemed interesting enough to try.
Tall, broad-shouldered, that jaw. The sleeve tattoo peeking out from under his rolled cuffs, black-and-gray geometric patterns bleeding into something organic.
And the smile that had undone me in a gym several months ago.
“Nice to finally meet you all,” Ellis said. Calm, warm. Like he hadn’t spent the entire subway ride squeezing my fingers hard enough to leave marks. “Jett’s told me so much about everyone, I feel like I already know you.”
Calliope recovered first. She always did.
“Wow.” She looked at me. “Wow, Jett.”
“I know.”
“Like, wow.”
“Calliope.”
“If you don’t treat him right, I will literally hex you. I have the crystals and I’m not afraid to use them.”
“She’s not kidding,” Raven said, still staring. “She hexed our landlord last month, and his car got towed the next day.”
“Correlation,” Ellis offered.
“Magic,” Calliope corrected.
Thalia leaned toward Sierra and stage-whispered, loud enough to reach the kitchen. “Holy crap. He’s like a Greek statue come to life.”
“I heard that,” Ellis called over his shoulder.
“I intended for you to.” Thalia toasted him with her drink.
He laughed. His real laugh, the unguarded one, the one I usually only heard when we were alone. My heart almost gave out. He was giving it to them already.
Raven pulled me aside while Ellis was getting the friend interrogation from Calliope and Thalia.
“He’s gorgeous.” I paused.
“Fine. Admitted. But does he make you laugh?”
“Every day.”
Sierra caught me in the kitchen while I was grabbing beers. Pulled me into a hug that smelled of her lavender shampoo. Like coming home.
“You deserve someone who gets how amazing you are.” She spoke into my shoulder. “I think he might.”
My eyes stung. I blinked hard. “Don’t make me cry before the concert. I just did my eyeliner.”
“Your eyeliner looks perfect.”
“I know. That’s why I can’t cry.”
The line outside the venue wrapped around a full block. Bodies pressed close, phone screens glowing, someone’s vape cloud drifting our way. Ellis kept my hand in his like a lifeline, which worked for both of us.
Lauren stood near the front already. Black hair loose across their forehead. Sierra’s old Razor Braids tee hanging off their shoulders like they’d been sleeping in it since the day Sierra handed it over. A folded new one sat cradled in their hands like a peace offering.
Sierra got there first. Of course. The sight of Lauren undid her every time, and she stopped pretending otherwise months ago.
I gave them their beat. Then I cleared my throat.
“Lauren.” I tugged Ellis forward with the hand that hadn’t stopped holding his. “This is Ellis.”
Lauren turned. They took him in, did the same half-second recalibration everyone else had done, then grinned like a cat spotting something worth chasing.
“We finally meet in person.” Lauren took his hand. “You’re taller than the phone screen made you look.”
“Phone-screen distortion,” Ellis replied. “Nice to officially meet you. Thank you. For, you know.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me at a Razor Braids show, Ashford. Save it for the cocktail hour.” A low, pleased laugh slipped out of Lauren. They lifted their eyes to mine over Ellis’s shoulder. “I approve. For the record.”
“Nobody asked.”
“Everybody asked.” Calliope squeezed between us toward the front of the line. “We took a vote on the subway.”
Thalia raised her phone. “I was the swing vote. Just so we’re clear.”
Ellis still had my hand. After the subway, after the apartment, after the whole interrogation, he hadn’t let go. Lauren clocked it. Their face did something soft that Sierra was going to be gone for later.
The doors opened before I could tease her about it.
The crowd surged forward and pulled us in, Sierra’s hand locked around Lauren’s, mine locked around Ellis’, the six of us spilling into the pit like we’d all agreed tonight belonged in memory.
Razor Braids opened with a scream that peeled paint off the walls. Bass hit my sternum first, then everywhere else. The venue smelled like spilled Pbr and somebody’s weed curling up through the strobes, and our group claimed a whole corner of the floor like we owned it.
Ellis danced with me. Laughing, nothing careful about it.
At one point he spun me around and pulled me back against his chest, his heartbeat drumming through my shirt, his mouth close enough to my ear I caught the clean-laundry smell of him under the venue funk.
This was what I’d feared. Two worlds colliding.
It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
White-boy name. Latin-boy moves. Mom would have eaten the words she’d been chewing on for months.
Calliope and Lauren boxed Ellis in during the third song, teaching him a routine Calliope had been forcing on the Coven at every Razor Braids show since high school.
Lauren mouthed the counts over their shoulder.
Calliope grabbed his hips to set him on the right beat.
Ellis caught the rhythm faster than Calliope expected.
She yelled, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME, ELLIS?!” at one point, which became the night’s chorus.
Raven filmed the whole thing on her phone, cackling.
Sierra caught my eye across the circle. Beer raised.
Eyebrows up. A question and a blessing rolled into one.
I raised mine back hard enough to slosh over my knuckles, and she laughed, and Lauren folded into her from behind with both arms around her waist and a kiss to the back of Sierra’s neck.
For a second I could see the whole shape of what I’d been running from for years.
People who stayed. People who danced like fools in public. People who chose each other out loud.
Walking home afterward, the October air sharp enough to need jackets, Ellis’ arm heavy around my shoulders.
“They loved you.”
“You think?”
“I know. Because they didn’t threaten to hex you.”
“That tracks.” He pulled me closer. “Sierra’s incredible. I can see why she’s your person.”
“She’s my person. You’re…” I searched for the word.
“Boyfriend? Partner? Devastatingly handsome gym buddy?”
“All of the above. But also… you’re the person I don’t have to perform for. Everyone else gets Jett. The funny one, the charming one, the one who’s always on. You get the version who’s scared, messy, and terrible at keeping plants alive.”
“That’s my favorite version.”
We kissed on the sidewalk in front of a bodega. The guy behind the counter never looked up from his phone. Brooklyn, man.
“So.” Ellis pulled back first. “Sierra mentioned movie night next week.”
“Already trying to replace me in the friend group.”
“Not replace. Infiltrate.”
“You’re the worst.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He grinned. We walked home through Brooklyn at midnight, his arm around my shoulders, my hand in his back pocket, two people who’d stopped being afraid of letting good things touch each other.