Chapter 21
MAY
His jacket smelled like the cologne Cassiel wore, the one that made May think of gin and tonic and cost something obscene.
He’d touched the bottle on Cassiel’s nightstand once, to look at the picture on the back of it, then sprayed a tiny bit of it on his own wrist. He’d kept sniffing at it even after it dried down, only to find that it smelled different on his own skin than it did on Cassiel’s.
They’d been at Boba Lion for maybe an hour, until the other customers had shuffled out and the activity behind the counter made it clear that they were coming up on closing. They walked side by side back out onto the street and lingered there on the sidewalk.
“Well, I’d better—”
“I’ll call an Uber,” Cassiel said, already looking at his phone. He looked different tonight, Dad’s brown trucker jacket no more a match on him than it was on May, though he wasn’t drowning in it.
“We’re not exactly going to the same place,” May said, though now he wasn’t sure.
“I’ll get off on 4th, you’ll go the rest of the way.”
May squinted at him. Behind them, the string lights on the exterior wall of the boba place flickered.
Cassiel had never shown much interest in May’s commute before.
It was a pain in the dick, had been on the way in, three transfers between Dogpatch and the Outer Richmond, an hour or more spent zoning out with the crunchy earbuds he needed to replace blasting in his ears.
“What?”
“Nothing! That’s nice. Thanks.”
Cassiel paused, squared his shoulders.
“I’m nice,” he said.
“I think you’re just baiting me at this point,” May said, and put his hand in Cassiel’s pocket.
* * *
Cassiel’s hand was around his, in the pocket of May’s father’s coat, which Cassiel was wearing on his body, in the rideshare that he’d called for both of them. A lot of that was weird. May could admit to that.
Their driver was playing what May privately thought of as Christian Horse Girl Music at a low volume. They passed through the rain-slicked streets and May tapped his foot.
They were still together.
The Year of the Snake had eaten everything but somehow they were still together. Cassiel had shown up for Italian-Japanese fusion and listened to him and Louis fight about the night and agreed to boba and made him swap jackets for no reason and they were still together.
It didn’t fix his brain being trash or that he’d fucked up with the family or make him less sure that the next argument would be about the same thing again; the fact that he wouldn’t see a doctor, and that Cassiel, who could manage and name his condition—God, what a word—would continue to have ideas about it.
It didn’t fix that. But May didn’t want a fix right now and, even if he did, it probably wasn’t going to be down to a Korean horologist who liked mint chocolate.
“Here?” asked the driver. They both looked up. May glanced out the window into the dark spotted with streetlights as the car slowed.
“Yes, thank you,” Cassiel said. He opened the door and stepped out.
“Wait,” May said, moving to wriggle out of the bomber jacket while his seatbelt was still fastened.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The door closed. It may have been the first time in Cassiel Minseok Lim history that those words had come out of his mouth and May had barely seen his face because he’d been all the way out of the car.
May waved out the window, then blew out a puff of air.
“Oh! I think he’s put the address in already but I’m just on Balboa…”
The seat beside him was still just warm enough that he could sense the absence, or maybe he was imagining that, because he wasn’t going to reach over and touch the seat to check for residual ass-warmth. It was not that kind of night.
May laced his fingers together in his lap and watched the city go past in streaks of light.
Third Street through SOMA, then the underpass, the freeway ramps, the surface streets where the light changed through the wet glass, orange lights through fog making every block look the same, only he was used to staring through glass in the dark and knew the shape of the city.
Market Street through the windshield now, and there was an old dude with a newsboy cap on holding a sign that said BWOLF SALE and May very badly wanted to know what a bwolf was but the driver probably didn’t stop for bwolves. And Cassiel had already paid.
He fiddled with the zipper of the bomber and discovered it was one of the ones that went both ways.
The jacket was wine-dark—sort of a dark purple that was also blue, depending on the light, and the light in the car was not helping.
He pulled the zipper up all the way, the zipper pull cold against his chin, and then shoved it up further so it sat over his nose and when he breathed in he got more of the cologne again.
The horse girl music carried on twanging as the car crossed Fulton. The park was a black field to the left, trees swallowing the streetlights. May leaned his head against the window and felt the glass cold through his hair.
He felt in the pocket of the jacket for the red envelope, rubbing a corner of it until it blunted. Anna had forced it onto him when he’d arrived at the restaurant. May hadn’t checked how much there was inside—one because it was tacky, two because it meant knowing.
It was Will’s money, and it was Anna’s money, and every year it felt dirty. He couldn’t make his sister not feel guilty because she never admitted she was, but he knew what it meant and he couldn’t refuse it either. Anna was the grifter in the family, only she gave you money.
The car stopped opposite the house. He thanked the driver and got out and stood on the sidewalk for a second. Then he felt for his keys in the back pocket of his jeans and crossed the street.
Inside, the apartment was dark and exactly the same. His fingers found the envelope in his pocket again as he kicked off his shoes and made his way to the bedroom.
May flopped down on his side, the bomber still on, just lying there in the dark. After a while he slid out of the clothes, got under his covers, draped the jacket over his legs and did not go to sleep in it because tonight he was not being pathetic.
* * *
“You look better,” Anna said.
“I slept,” May said, which was mostly true. He’d slept in increments between bouts of staring at the ceiling and replaying Cassiel’s voice saying I think so in a boba shop in Dogpatch. “I slept amazing actually, like a baby cherub swaddled in clouds.”
The New Taraval Café had peach-colored walls.
Anna had already ordered eggs. Louis was beside her, hunched into the booth with his phone flat on the table and a plate of French toast he was eating with his hands.
He was wearing the same Palm Angels shirt from last night and had an inexplicable pair of shitty sunglasses on.
“Is that…?”
May looked down at Cassiel’s bomber like he’d forgotten he was wearing it. He’d put it on deliberately because the morning was cold and his hoodie smelled like sweat and anyway, wasn’t warm enough. His only real jacket was still elsewhere, lost to the city.
“Cassiel’s. We swapped last night because Dad’s coat was too big on me and Cassiel has shoulders. The logical thing to do. Y’know.”
Anna raised her eyebrows. She picked up her coffee and drank, watching him over the rim.
“It’s nice,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s like a… waxed oil… cotton canvas thing. Water-resistant. Quilted lining.”
“It’s nice that you have someone’s jacket, May.”
Louis looked up from his French toast. “Is he ordering? I want more toast.”
“Finish the toast you have,” said Anna.
“I’m so sorry,” Louis replied in his shitty Mandarin. “Mama, when did you get here?”
Anna flung a toothpick at him, then flagged the server. Louis ordered a second plate and a side of bacon, smugly. May ordered the Brisket Hash and Eggs and another coffee.
“Chinese New Year,” she said.
Louis’s chewing slowed.
May groaned. He thought he’d gotten away with this already. “I went to Cassiel’s family’s place for their Lunar New Year thing and then I had a weird night. I told you. Are we not gonna talk about how Lou’s still wearing sunglasses inside?”
“You didn’t mention you were at someone else’s house, May,” Anna said.
May put his fork down. The hash browns were good. He wanted to keep eating them instead of having this conversation.
“God. Okay. We were over in Fremont. Having an awesome day, actually. And then—y’know, the brain injury.
Everything went fuzzy. I got confused or something, thought it was another year.
I left. I went to Chinatown to get a duck because Lou likes duck, but Lau Kee was closed because it was literally Chinese New Year, so I grabbed some fried chicken instead, and then I went home. To the house.”
He said it fast, all one breath. Anna was watching his face, her brows drawn together in a way that made her look so much like their mother it activated something petulant and teenaged inside him that he had to actively suppress.
“Mama wasn’t expecting me, obviously, but she was… freaked out, and then I ate some stuff and Dad said I should probably go, so I went.”
“May.” Anna’s voice was careful. “Mama called me the next morning. She thought you were on drugs.”
“I’m not on drugs!” he said, a little too loudly. He looked around. “—Just, I mean, other than the normal drugs.”
“I know. I had to talk her down for twenty minutes. She was in a panic, she kept saying zenme ban over and over again.”
“Dad said…” May stopped. He reached for his backpack, on the seat beside him, and pulled out the green notebook and flipped to the page, to the words he’d written after Dad called after Thanksgiving:
You’re not going home for christmas and new years (both)
He turned it to show Anna. Evidence. She read it, her wedding ring catching the sunlight as she tilted the notebook.
“May,” she said. “That… doesn’t really mean anything. I don’t think Mama wanted you gone.”
The diner noise filled the pause. Louis had stopped eating and was chewing on his lip, eyes hidden behind the sunglasses.