Six Arya
six
Arya
One Week Later
Eid-e shomā mobarak, khaleh!” Arya said, pulling Persis into a hug. They kissed each other’s cheeks.
“Happy Nowruz, Arya-jan,” she shouted over the hubbub.
Persis wasn’t really Arya’s mom’s sister, but she might as well have been.
Persis Alavi and her husband, Firouz, were the parents of Arya’s best friend, Farzan.
Arya, Farzan, and their other best friend, Ramin, had found each other in elementary school and become close as brothers.
They were family. So it only made sense for Arya to call Farzan’s mom his aunt.
Farzan’s parents had run Shiraz Bistro, an Iranian restaurant in Gladstone, for most of their lives, and now Farzan owned and ran it, with Arya and Ramin as silent partners.
Being part owner of a Persian restaurant was super convenient around Nowruz: The dining room had space for Arya’s and Farzan’s huge extended families (Ramin’s parents had passed away, so his family now was his boyfriend Noah and Noah’s son Jake); the kitchen had room to prep and cook a huge Nowruz spread; and best of all, there was no passive-aggressive posturing of who’d be hosting at their house each year.
Instead, everyone came to Shiraz Bistro—along with any strangers who didn’t have anyone else to celebrate with.
There were more than a few pleasantly befuddled non-Iranians wandering around the party, getting introduced to Nowruz by all the enthusiastic guests.
“Where’s your mom?” Persis asked.
Arya shrugged. He hadn’t seen her since she walked in. “Probably in the kitchen?”
“Merci, azizam. You’re looking handsome tonight.”
Arya blushed. God, thirty-nine years old, and he still blushed if an Iranian parent complimented him.
But he did look good tonight, in a sky-blue suit perfect for the first day of spring, his nails painted to match, his head freshly shaved.
Not that the top needed it—that part was thoroughly bald—but he kept the sides shaved so he didn’t walk around with a scruffy sort of halo.
While Persis disappeared into the kitchen, Arya sidled up to the bar, where David, Farzan’s boyfriend, was pouring champagne with one hand and making Persian tea with the other.
“Impressive,” Arya said.
David looked up from the champagne flute and gave Arya a smirk and a wink.
David looked impeccable tonight, too, in a maroon suit.
He’d gotten a lineup that morning: his hairline and beard crisp, his eyebrow slit sharp, his sponge curls perfect.
He was a handsome, dark-skinned Black man and Farzan’s boyfriend of nearly three years.
He was also a master sommelier. Hence the skill with the drinks.
“That’s nothing. Watch this.”
David set down the champagne bottle, swapped the teapot to his right hand, and raised it high above his head while he held the teacup near his waist. Arya’s eyes widened as David poured a perfect stream of golden-red tea three feet down into the cup.
“Wow.”
“Learned that one pouring coffee at this snooty French place back in Chicago.” David set the tea on the bar just in time for Naseem, one of Arya’s mom’s friends, to swing by and grab it. Maheen, Farzan’s sister, snagged the champagne, giving David a wave and Arya a kiss on the cheek.
Then her eyes bulged in alarm. “Safa, no!” Baby Safa—Maheen’s daughter—wasn’t so much a baby anymore: She was nearly two now, adorable and a total menace.
Arya loved her to bits.
David laughed. “Happy Nowruz, man,” he said, voice low and smooth.
“You too.” Arya took the champagne flute David offered, raised it in a silent toast, and headed toward the kitchen to see if Persis had found his mom.
He didn’t get very far before Ramin intercepted him.
“Hey!” Ramin—the real Ramin, not the little angel Ramin that sometimes lived over Arya’s shoulder—said breathlessly. He pulled Arya into a quick, careful hug to avoid spilling the champagne. “Happy Nowruz!”
“Happy Nowruz! Where’s Noah?”
Ramin gestured toward one of the booths, where Noah—his boyfriend of nine months—had settled with his ten-year-old son, Jake, who was going to town on a seriously impressive pile of shirini.
“Jake looks right at home.”
Ramin gave Arya a dimpled smile. He was light-skinned for an Iranian, but his large nose gave him away. He had green eyes and short black hair.
“He’s been buzzing about presents all month.”
Arya laughed. He and Farzan and David had more or less become Jake’s guncles at this point.
Arya never thought of himself as liking kids, but every time Jake smiled at him and called him Uncle Arya, he melted just a little bit. And he loved when Safa sat on his lap and let him read to her. Hell, he even loved when Safa turned into a bit of a monster, so maybe he did like kids after all.
Arya’s own nephews were in their twenties—his sister, Farah, was thirteen years older than him, and she’d had them when Arya was still in middle school, so they’d been more like little cousins than nephews. They’d been kids when he was a teenager. It wasn’t quite the same.
But Jake? Jake was a kid with a big heart and a bigger smile, and somehow he and Arya had ended up partners in crime.
“I apologize in advance for how much my gift to him is going to annoy you both.”
Ramin snorted. “I’d expect nothing less.”
His eyes slid past Arya to Noah and Jake, and he gave a little smile and wave.
Noah waved back. He was white, though actually a little darker than Ramin with his tan. He was handsome and fit, strong all over from CrossFit and his work as a carpenter. He’d been a godsend for the Lions, the queer kickball team Arya captained.
And he’d been a godsend for Ramin, too, because when they looked at each other, Arya wasn’t sure whether to melt into a puddle of goo or ask them to get a room. But Ramin deserved someone who loved him as fiercely as Noah did.
Arya was happy for his friends. Really. They were all doing well, and despite what he’d said to Ben last week in the quiet, vulnerable hours of the night, he didn’t feel like a fifth wheel.
He was the Group Slut?—always had been—and he took that responsibility seriously.
Relationships were for other people. A Revolving Door of Dick, that’s what Arya wanted.
“You two are sweet,” Arya said. “I know I say it all the time, but I’m so happy for you, dude.”
Ramin looked back, blushing hard. “I’m happy, too.” He leaned in close. “I’m gonna ask him to marry me when we’re in Italy this summer.”
Arya nearly dropped his champagne. “Really?”
“Yeah. We’ve been talking about it here and there, and he said he’d be open to getting married again someday. To me, even.”
Arya snorted. “You’re a catch, dude.”
“I know.” Ramin blushed even harder. “I really love him.”
“You are so corny,” Arya said, but he pulled Ramin in for a hug. “This new year is going to be your best yet. I know it.”
Arya let Ramin go join Noah and Jake.
“They’re so cute together,” his mom said in Farsi. “Look at them.”
“Hi, Maman,” Arya said, pulling his mom in for a quick hug. “Happy Nowruz.”
“Happy Nowruz,” she said, air-kissing his cheeks.
Shohreh Nazeri was a tall woman, with brown eyes, dyed blond hair, and a dash of plastic surgery here and there, but she had Arya’s nose.
Sometimes it actually surprised Arya his mom had never had a nose job, given all the Botox and microblading and cheek filler she’d gotten over the years.
But for whatever reason, she’d kept her nose. She still looked like his mom.
She had lighter skin than him, though. He got some of his darker coloring from his dad, and some from the fact he didn’t hide from the sun or constantly slather himself with skin-lightening creams.
For all his mom’s eccentricities, though, Arya loved her. Even if he didn’t always know how to talk to her.
“Maybe I should’ve invited Parviz,” she mused, playing with the gold pendant dangling off her neck.
“Maman…” Arya warned.
Parviz was his mom’s… lover? Boy toy? Long-term booty call?
His mom wasn’t having an affair, not exactly. She’d always taken lovers when his dad was in Iran, just like his dad always had mistresses back there. They never talked about it, never acknowledged it, and certainly never brought their long-term booty calls to holiday parties.
Arya fucking hated it.
And he fucking hated how his parents pretended to have a happy marriage when they spent most of their time on different continents.
And he hated how he couldn’t talk to his friends about it, because Farzan’s parents were still happily married, and Ramin’s parents were dead (but they’d been happily married, too), so how was he supposed to explain the complete and embarrassing mess that was his own parents’ marriage?
He tipped back his champagne and drank too fast, letting out a closed-mouth burp that he hoped no one could hear.
Thankfully, the music—provided by DJ Reza Bass, a family friend who kept up a thriving law practice to subsidize his career as a DJ—drowned out the noise.
Unfortunately, it didn’t drown out his mother. “Arya-joon, what do you want to do for your fortieth birthday? I can make whatever you want.”
“I’ll think about it.” He didn’t want to think about turning forty.
He didn’t want to think about another awkward dinner at his mom’s house, with his sister and brother-in-law and nephews and an empty spot where his dad would’ve been if he wasn’t half a world away, fucking some other woman.
Arya shook himself. It was Nowruz. The new year. It was a party, and he was being a party pooper.
He glanced back toward Ramin, leaning against Noah’s shoulder as Jake told some sort of story with wild hand gestures.
He glanced toward the bar, where Farzan had joined David pouring champagne, though not without an occasional kiss on the cheek.
His friends were happy. And damn it, he was happy, too.
He might be nearing forty, but he was still Arya Fucking Nazeri. He didn’t get jealous and he didn’t get attached and he didn’t get melancholy. He fucked who he wanted, he lived how he wanted, he worked hard and played harder.
He was great.