Chapter 11 #2
Jason brings out the food. It's, there's no other word for it, extraordinary. Some kind of pasta with roasted tomatoes and basil and fresh mozzarella and bread that's still warm and a salad that I wouldn't normally eat except it has this dressing that makes me understand why people eat salad.
"Oh my god," I say after the first bite.
"Right?" Robin grins. "Jason's food is a spiritual experience."
"It's just pasta," Jason says, but he's smiling.
The meal is loud and chaotic and nothing like the quiet world Silas and I have built in the library and the café.
People talk over each other. Vaughn and Knox argue about something garage-related.
Robin narrates everyone's behavior like a sports commentator.
Ezra and Nico have a quiet conversation that sounds like a foreign language.
Toby and I fall into a conversation about romance novels that goes deep fast, tropes we love, tropes we hate, the eternal debate about whether instalove is lazy writing or aspirational fantasy.
"Aspirational," I say firmly. "Nobody reads romance for realism."
"Thank you!" Toby says. "I've been saying this for years."
"Toby once made Knox read a romance novel," Silas tells me. "Knox finished it in one sitting and then didn't speak for three hours."
"It was emotionally complex," Knox says from behind the bar.
"It was called The Duke's Reluctant Bride," Robin adds.
"The title is irrelevant to the thematic content."
I laugh. Actually laugh, out loud, in a room full of people I barely know, and it feels like something I haven't done in so long I'd forgotten the mechanics.
Silas's hand finds my knee under the bar. Squeezes once. I see you. I'm glad you're here.
I put my hand over his. Squeeze back. Me too.
After dinner, we help clean up. I dry dishes while Silas washes, and we work in the same easy silence we have in the library. Jason packs leftovers into a container and hands it to me without comment.
"For later," he says. "The pasta reheats well. Add a splash of water before microwaving."
"You don't have to —"
"I always make too much. Silas will confirm."
"He makes too much," Silas confirms. "It's pathological."
"It's generous," I say, taking the container. "Thank you."
Jason gives me a long look. The kind that says he knows more than he's letting on, about the shelter, about the pastries Robin packs too many of, about the economy of a life where homemade leftovers are a luxury.
"Anytime," he says. "Saturday dinner is every week. You're welcome whenever."
* * *
Silas walks me home. The evening is cool, the streetlights on, the sky dark.
"Your family's nice," I say.
"They're a lot."
"Good lot. The kind of lot that makes too much pasta and argues about romance novels."
"Knox is never going to live down The Duke's Reluctant Bride."
"He shouldn't. That book is a masterpiece."
"You've read it?"
"Twice. Don't tell Toby. We'll never stop talking about it."
We're on Madison now. Haven House is a block ahead. The walk is becoming a rhythm, him bringing me here, me going inside, the doorway between his world and mine.
"So," he says. "Next Saturday. Same thing?"
"Library, work, and dinner?"
"And maybe a real date after? There's another Italian place Jason recommended. He says the carbonara is transcendent."
"Define transcendent."
"Jason's exact words were 'it made me angry how good it was.'"
"Then yes. Definitely yes."
He kisses me at the corner, soft, quick, the kind of kiss that says this is becoming normal and I like it. I kiss him back, equally soft, equally quick, with the unspoken addition of me too.
"Goodnight, Dev."
"Goodnight."
He watches me walk to the door. I punch in the code, wave from inside. He waves back, gets on his bike, rides away.
Upstairs, Tyler is lying on his bed, scrolling his phone. He looks up when I come in.
"You have leftovers," he says, spotting the container. "Fancy leftovers."
"Jason's pasta."
"His pride made you food?" Tyler sits up. "Dev. That's family stuff. That's 'we're claiming you' stuff."
"It's just pasta."
"Dude, that is never just pasta." He eyes the container. "Can I have some?"
I split the leftovers with Tyler. We eat Jason's pasta on our narrow beds in our small room on the third floor of a youth shelter, and it's the best meal I've had since last night, which was the best meal I'd had since the night before, and somewhere in the accumulation of good meals and library mornings and vending machine coffee and smiley-face notes, I realize that I'm building a life.
Not the life I planned, the apartment, the solitude, the careful self-sufficiency of a person who learned early that depending on anyone was a risk.
A different life. One with people in it.
A boss who feeds me, a roommate who throws pillows at me, a quiet man who reads fantasy novels and brings me coffee and introduced me to his family.
The math hasn't changed. But the context has.
My phone buzzes.
Silas: Toby wants to know about The Goblin Emperor.
Tell him it's my favorite book.
Silas: He says you have excellent taste and he wants to start a two-person book club.
Tell him yes.
Silas: He's already texting you. He got your number from Robin.
My phone buzzes again. Unknown number: Hi Devin! It's Toby. Silas says you've read Goblin Emperor. Have you read the sequel? It came out last year and I SOBBED. Anyway welcome to the family! We're doing book club Wednesdays if you're free. No pressure! But also definitely come. :)
I save his number. Text back: I haven't read the sequel yet. I'd love to come Wednesday.
Tyler reads the text over my shoulder. "You got adopted," he says. "By a whole pride of lion shifters. Through the medium of books."
"It's just a book club."
"Dev." Tyler puts his hand on my shoulder, surprisingly gentle. "It's never just a book club."
He's right. It's not.
I fall asleep reading Piranesi, Silas was right, it's strange and beautiful and unlike anything I've read, and when my phone buzzes one last time, it's a text from Silas: Sweet dreams, Dev.
Today was perfect.
I type a smiley face. Send it. Close my eyes.
The numbers are still there, still ticking, still real. But for the first time, the countdown doesn't feel like a clock running out.
It feels like a clock running toward something.