Chapter 18 — ZAY
Teo drops Parker’s carrier at my apartment Wednesday night with a typed list of feeding instructions and a Ziploc of her preferred treats.
The list is formatted. Bullet points, bold headers, an italicized note about the specific blanket that she likes during the afternoon.
He hands me the carrier and his face does the thing where the grin pulls back and what’s underneath is just open and serious and young.
"She likes the blanket folded, not balled up. In the carrier."
"I know."
"And the treats are for before bed. Not whenever. She'll try to convince you it's whenever but it's before bed."
"Teo."
"I know." He doesn't move toward the door. He's going home for the All-Star break to visit his family. And leaving Parker with me for the first time. Parker is already investigating the baseboards with the focus of someone filing a report.
"She's going to sit on your chest and purr and you're going to think about how this is the greatest honor of your life." He pauses. "You'd be right."
"Go pack."
"I'm packed. I've been packed for two days. Headed to the airport straight from here."
Of course he has. Teo Marchetti, who cannot sit still to save his life, packed his suitcase early because leaving his cat requires more preparation than leaving a city. He watches Parker the way he watches me sometimes, like watching is the entire point.
"I needed to drop her off, but I also came for this." He leans in and kisses me.
Slow. His hand finding the side of my neck, his thumb on my jaw, tilting my face up the half inch that closes the angle between us. I should let him go. His flight is in three hours and the airport is forty minutes and he's kissing me like he has nowhere to be for the rest of the week.
My hand goes to his hip. Pulls him closer. He makes a sound against my mouth, low and pleased, and his fingers slide around my neck. Not hard. Just enough that I feel it at the base of my skull and my whole body pays attention.
I walk him one step backward until his shoulders hit the wall beside the door.
He lets me. He lets me press my weight into him and his other hand grabs the front of my shirt, fingers twisted in the fabric, pulling me in.
His mouth opens under mine and the kiss goes deeper and hotter and I feel him hard against my thigh and I know he feels me too because his hips shift and the friction sends a pulse straight through my spine.
"Zay." My name broken into breath against my lips.
I drag my mouth down his jaw. His neck. Press my tongue flat against his pulse and feel it hammering. His grip tightens and his head tips back against the wall and the sound he makes is not quiet.
"Your flight," I say against his throat.
"I don't care about the flight now."
"Yes you do." I pull back far enough to see his face. Flushed. Mouth wet. Eyes half-open and focused on me with the particular concentration of a man who is running calculations about how late he can actually be. I watch him do the math. I watch the math lose.
He kisses me again. Shorter this time. Harder. His teeth catch my bottom lip and I feel it everywhere. Then he flattens his palm against my chest and pushes, just enough distance between us that we can both breathe, and his hand stays on my chest. I can feel the heat of his palm through my shirt.
"Five days," he says.
"Five days."
"Take care of my cat."
"I'll take care of your cat."
His hand lifts off my chest. He opens the door and turns back with a grin, and then he turns and doesn't look back. Even when I can tell he wants to turn around.
I close the door. Parker is already on the couch, paws tucked, watching me like someone who has decided I'm adequate. My mouth still feels like him. I press my thumb to my bottom lip where his teeth were and stand there a second longer than I need to.
***
I meet Guy and Nan for lunch on Friday at the pho place on Buford Highway that I’ve been going to since high school. The one Berger gave a six-point-five.
A six-point-five. For the best pho in Georgia. Berger has never eaten at a table without cloth napkins and he walked in here once with Thompson and gave this place a six-point-five and I have been keeping my mouth shut for months about this.
Guy is already at the table. Nan is across from him, her purse on the chair beside her because Nan does not share a booth side with anyone she hasn’t vetted, and the purse is the checkpoint.
“Isaiah.” She stands when she sees me. “How are you? Are you eating enough?”
“Nan. It’s been three weeks.”
“And?”
Guy grins. “She’s been giving me the full treatment. I’m basically family now.”
“You are not family,” Nan says, sitting back down. “You are a person I tolerate because my grandson likes you. There is a difference.” She slides the menu toward me even though I have ordered the same thing here since 2019 and she knows it.
Our server comes over to take our order. He’s good-looking. I notice it the way I notice good bone structure on an X-ray. Automatic, clinical. If I mentioned this out loud, Guy would tell me to stop comparing men to imaging results and he would be right.
“Berger gave this place a six-point-five,” I tell Guy.
“Who is Berger?”
“A player. He has a restaurant ranking system. He calls it a methodology. He docked points because the fluorescent lighting doesn’t, quote, create a dining atmosphere.”
Guy looks at the fluorescent lights. Looks at me. “I like the lights.”
“The lights are fine. The lights are honest. He gave Fox Bros a seven-point-five for brisket and this place a six-point-five for pho. But this pho is a nine.”
Nan sips her water. “Is the brisket a seven-point-five?”
“The brisket is probably an eight. That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is his methodology has a bias toward ambiance that punishes every restaurant on Buford Highway because they’re not trying to be atmospheric. They’re trying to feed you excellent food.”
I am aware that my voice has risen. I am aware that this is not the measured register I use in the facility, not the clinical tone that keeps the treatment room clean and professional and exactly the right temperature.
This is the other one. The one that argues about pho scores at full volume in a booth on Buford Highway with the two people who have known me longest and best. Guy is grinning.
Nan is studying me over her water glass.
Both of them are seeing a version of me I don’t really let out when I’m at work.
The food comes and we eat. Guy talks about his boyfriend Michael’s promotion. Nan talks about the magnolia in her backyard that is threatening the foundation and how she will not be cutting it down because it’s been there for decades and the foundation can adjust.
Then Guy sets his spoon down and looks at me.
“You’re seeing someone.”
“I’m eating pho.”
“That’s not a denial. Who is it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated with you. You make toast complicated. Just tell me.”
Nan’s hand lands on the back of my neck. “You don’t have to say who,” she says. Then, quieter: “But you should know your face isn’t doing what you think it’s doing.”
Guy nods. “Your face is doing a lot.”
“My face is eating pho.”
“Your face is eating pho like a man who is thinking about someone who is not in this restaurant. That is not a pho face. That is a person face.”
“It’s new,” I say. Which is the minimum I can give and still not say anything.
“Is it good?” Guy asks. The volume drops a notch. The real question underneath the performance.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out quieter than I planned. “It’s good.”
Nan’s hand squeezes once. Then lifts. She picks up her chopsticks and says, “The vermicelli is better here than it was in December,” and the conversation moves to safer ground because Nan knows when to hold a thing and when to set it down.
Guy catches my eye across the table with a look that says this is not over. I give him one back that says I know.
***
When I get home, Parker is on the couch in the exact position I left her, which either means she hasn’t moved in three hours or she heard my key and rearranged herself to communicate that my absence did not inconvenience her.
I sit. She evaluates my lap. One paw, then the other. She steps onto my chest, circles once, and settles into the hollow below my collarbone, disregarding whether I invited her.
The purring starts. Low and steady. Her head tucks under my chin. I put my hand on her back and feel the vibration move through my palm into my ribs, and I stay still because moving would disturb her and because something inside me settles and I don’t want to disturb that either.