8. Omar
Chapter eight
Omar
South City Kitchen was near the heart of Midtown Atlanta, the gay mecca of the Southeast. Only a few blocks from Piedmont Park, the place catered to the business crowd during the day and a wide variety of characters each evening. Most Friday and Saturday nights, the place was packed with boys and their significant others—or their not-yet-significant others, or their significant-tonight-only others. Regardless of the diners’ statuses, the restaurant was at once cozy, casual, and somehow upscale. It took a lot to pull all that off, but SCK did it with panache.
Some of my earliest memories were of my father barking at my mother for running us too close to an event’s start time. He repeated, in Egyptian, the American military’s phrase, “If you’re on time, you’re late.” How an American Naval phrase made it into an Egyptian diplomat serving in the UK’s vernacular remained a mystery. The message behind the words did not.
I was always ten minutes early.
Always.
The hostess pointed me toward the bar, where I ordered my usual, a pink Manhattan. The first time I ate at SCK and ordered the drink, the bartender looked at me like I had four heads. I explained, in painstaking detail only a true Brit could accomplish, that a splash of cranberry, orange, and lime would turn the classic drink a fashionable shade more appropriate for the Midtown setting.
When he started to add the traditional bitters, I waved him off. “There’s nothing bitter about a pink drink,” I said, earning a grin.
He dutifully followed my instructions and slid the glass my way, pouring the leftovers into a shot glass, which he promptly tipped back. “Dear God, that’s awful,” he said through a grimace that remained on his face long after my table was called.
Now, I raised the glass, took a sip, and grinned. No one else needed to love my fruity rye-vermouth concoction. The cherries used for garnish were particularly satisfying when soaked and eaten last.
My barstool was positioned with a perfect line of sight to the front door of the restaurant, so I caught a flash of blond when Matty entered and was waved my way by the hostess. He wore a black shirt and black pants, making his curls even more brilliant in the restaurant’s track lighting. I was not sure why I expected him to wear something more colorful—more Matty—but his monochromatic ensemble made his look even more striking than if he’d cloaked himself in a rainbow made of pure light. He wove between high-tops to finally stand behind the barstool beside mine.
That was when I saw his eyes.
Of course, I’d seen his eyes in the hospital. We’d had lunch a few times now. I knew what they looked like, all gray and brooding, except when he smiled. They lit like beacons when he was happy, which was basically anytime he breathed.
Yes, I’d seen Matty’s eyes before, but never in that light, and never . . . on a date.
They were striking.
“Look who washes up all nice and handsome,” he said, his voice a singsongy contradiction with his outfit.
I blinked a few times, unable to stop staring.
“Can I have a hug or, I don’t know, a handshake?”
I remembered myself and leaped off the stool, nearly bumbling into him and knocking him over. His arms flew around me and braced us both.
“Hug it is.”
His breath was hot across my neck, and I felt a tingling in my toes.
“Hello,” I said, trying to form basic sentences and failing. It had been a few years since I’d dated, and the whole endeavor felt, I don’t know, like a disaster in the making.
Matty didn’t hear my doubts. His smile beamed, and the tingly thing crept into my legs and up toward my chest.
“Hello, you,” he said before glancing over my shoulder. “And what are we drinking? I can’t believe you started without me. How un-gay. Wait, no, that’s very gay. You are a very good gay this beautiful evening. I take back my scolding. No respectable queen lets alcohol wait on another. It’s a commandment . . . or a law . . . or one of those things in the Gay Bible, I’m not sure which.”
“I think one of the guys on Queer Eye said it in an episode, maybe in the British version. I can’t remember.”
“Right!” He speared the air with his forefinger like he was bidding at an auction but lost his paddle. “Anyway, back to priorities. What is that thing in that snooty-looking glass?”
I grinned. “It isn’t snooty. It is perfectly appropriate for a Manhattan.”
“Did your Manhattan decide to do drag tonight?”
The bartender behind me let out a snort. When I turned to glower, he’d ducked away to serve someone else. I grabbed my drink and held it out. “Take a sip, if you dare.”
Matty eyed me, then the drink, shrugged, lifted the glass, and took a sip.
He didn’t scowl, not exactly. His entire face froze in one expressionless moment, as his brain and taste buds had a deep and meaningful conversation. After a few seconds, he reached around me and set the glass back on the bar, raised a hand, and shouted at the bartender, “Keep that thing away from me. I’ll have a cosmo, stat!”
“It isn’t for everyone,” I admitted, my head lowering a touch.
Matty reached down with a finger and lifted my chin, forcing our gazes to meet again. For a moment, I thought he might kiss me or make some dying declaration. His stare was so intense.
“That was vile, but you’re cute, so I will forgive you.”
My brain cells scrambled, unsure whether to focus on the insult of my drink or him calling me cute.
“Right. Cosmos for Matty. Got it.”
The bartender set Matty’s drink on the bar, and he reached across me to retrieve it. There was plenty of room, but he chose to press close against me. His lips brushed my ear, and he whispered, “You’re really, really cute tonight. Just sayin’.”
The flutter I felt turned into a full-on stampede.
“I, uh, thanks. Let me, um, I’ll go . . . I need to check on our table.”
If the tables in the bar were an obstacle course, I was its champion. No one had ever bobbed and weaved so quickly, avoiding servers and diners with the grace of a true Ninja Warrior.
What was it about Matty that had me so discombobulated?
I’d been on dates.
I’d been in relationships.
Okay, one relationship.
That lasted two weeks.
With a pervert who shared photos of me naked online.
Not those kind of pictures. We’d been out for a swim at a water park, and I’d stepped into the locker room to shower and change. Who would think someone might snap photos in such a setting and post them for the world to see? I was horrified, and that was the last I saw of Roman. He was a dickwad, and I had no room in my life for that sort.
Still, it was a relationship, damn it.
Yet, here I was, bumbling my way around words and deeds and hell, just bumbling.
I’d met heads of state, members of Parliament, kings and queens, and countless cultural icons. I was never starstruck or discomfited. I never stammered or stuttered like some foolish schoolboy with his first crush.
Why the hell was I tripping over my tongue with Matty?
When we hadn’t even been seated?
We worked together, for heaven’s sake. Who loses their shit over their coworker?
A coworker they were on a date with.
Oh, shit.
Unlike my Teto—my grandmother who still lived in Cairo—I wasn’t a big believer in the old gods. I’d never even lived in Egypt.
But in that moment, I was ready to pray to anyone who might listen and give me a touch of courage.
I guess the gods listened, because our table was ready. The hostess walked with me to the bar where Matty had already closed out our tab and stood with both our dinks in hand. The way he looked down at my drink with barely disguised disgust make me giggle and relax just a bit.
Seeing me smile, he glowed. “There he is.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I said, turning and following the hostess.
Behind me, Matty chuckled.