Chapter 4 Now #2
There is no delicate way to eat a hot dog, even as gourmet as the one Alex put together.
Char-grilled casing that cracks as I bite in.
Light-as-air, subtly sweet brioche bun, finely diced shallots scattered across it.
Two slim spears of crunchy homemade dill pickle.
Tangy brown mustard. And of course, because this is Pittsburgh, a hearty drizzle of Heinz Ketchup.
My hands have a pleasant stickiness to them from the humidity clinging to my skin, the ketchup and mustard that leaked from the bun.
Salty grease lingers on my lips. My stomach is wonderfully full.
I breathe in and taste the scent of grill smoke hanging in the air as a chorus of crickets chirps in the backyard, the steady thuds of Alex traipsing through the kitchen like a comforting heartbeat.
My first hot dog from Alex’s kitchen. Knees knocking as we sat side by side and ate in comfortable quiet. Eyes meeting over just-right bites. His thumb sweeping ketchup from my mouth. Smiling so hard it hurt when I noticed he had mustard on his nose.
For a moment, I am utterly content.
Then I remember the email I just read.
The back door thuds shut, followed by the pleasant crack of a beer being opened. Alex lowers himself to the edge of the stoop beside me and hands me the can of beer he went inside for. He always offers me the first foamy, ice-cold sip.
“Well?” he says.
I take a long gulp of beer. And then I take another.
“Easy, tiger.” He plucks the beer gently from my hand.
“I read the email,” I tell him.
“I inferred,” he says, “from the chugging.” His eyes search mine. “Talk to me, Ted. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking this is not the kind of vacation I had in mind when I pictured finally taking a vacation.” I take the beer from him and this time have a measured, throat-wetting sip. Then I hand it back. “And I’m thinking our chickens have come home to roost.”
Alex peers at the beer, brow furrowed, then brings the can to his mouth and takes a drink. I watch it wet his lips, his Adam’s apple rolling in his throat as he swallows.
“Sometimes,” he says, “I think about how wild it is that they believed the story we cooked up.”
I take the beer from him and have another drink. “They didn’t just believe it. They took it and ran.”
A montage of moments since that first night on his stoop flits through my mind.
All the things we’ve done together, been through together, that Ethan and Jen inevitably witnessed.
I can admit we’ve given them plenty of material—in person, on social media—but all of it was in the context of friendship.
They just seem incapable of seeing it that way.
“I did say we were first loves,” he admits.
“And then we told them that was in the past,” I remind him, “when we were teens.” I swig the beer again, then hand it back to Alex and pick up my phone, so I can reread the email.
Thea and Alex,
We would like to invite you to join us for a two-family beach vacation starting the last week of July into the first week of August.
“ ‘Two-family vacation,’ ” I mutter. “We’ve been telling them we’re just friends for two years. Why don’t they believe us?”
“I think…” Alex clears his throat. “It’s because they don’t find us very convincing as ‘just friends.’ ”
“What,” I say to him, “about our behavior is so unconvincing? We’ve never done anything that had a whiff of romance.”
Alex stares at me. I squint-grimace as I rethink that statement.
The truth is, there have been slipups, moments between Alex and me in the past two years that very much had a whiff of romance.
What mattered then—what matters now—is that they were unintentional, incidental moments that were bound to happen between two people going through a hard season of life together, being each other’s safe person, comfort person, steady person. Being each other’s best friend.
“At least,” I amend, “not in front of them.”
Alex frowns down at the beer in his hands. “Ted, we’ve done more with each other—for each other—than a lot of romantic couples. No matter what we call it, we’re good to each other in a way they’d only expect people to be if… they loved each other.”
I stare at him, my heart pounding in my chest. “We do love each other.” My throat’s turned tight and dry, but I push out the words because they’re the life raft I cling to, my insurance, my guarantee that we’re safe: “As friends.”
Alex is silent, still frowning down at the beer. I watch him take a sip, then a longer sip that turns into a chug.
“Now who’s the tiger that needs to go easy.” I reach for the beer, and Alex lets me take it, dropping his elbows to his knees, his hands clasped together.
I cup the cold can, tracing the condensation with my fingertips. Then I go back to rereading the email.
Of course, we know things haven’t always been easy between the four of us, and we recognize that might make this idea less than appealing, but all of us being there would mean so much to Mia.
As we anticipate a significant development in her family life (which we would like to share with you during this vacation), we think she would benefit from the comfort and consistency of time at her favorite place with her favorite people and dog (Argos is included in this invitation!
!!). Ethan’s family has offered us the use of their beachfront property in Bethany, DE.
We also recognize this is short notice, so even if you can’t come the full two weeks (though that would be wonderful, for Mia!
!), you’re invited to come for however much time you can get off.
Please consider and let me know if you’re willing to join and how long you are able to stay as soon as possible.
I truly hope you can make it. Your presence would make Mia so happy.
Warmly,
Jen and Ethan
I slip my phone into my pocket, tip the beer back, and drain the last swig that’s left.
“Reread?” Alex asks.
“Yep.” I set the empty can on the step beside my feet. “I’m thinking they’re going to tell us they’re engaged, maybe pregnant, too.”
“Hmm,” Alex says.
I glance his way. “Don’t you think so? What else would ‘a significant development in Mia’s family life’ mean?”
Alex rubs his thumb over a burn scar on the inside of his wrist. “I don’t know what else it would be.” He meets my eyes. “If that is the case, will you go? Knowing it’s likely they’re going to say to our faces that they’re getting married, having a baby together?”
“Will you?” I ask.
A swallow works down his throat. “I asked first, Ted.”
My eyes search his, one of those moments in which the tug between us feels more weighted than it should. “Yes,” I tell him finally. “I’ll go.”
I didn’t realize his shoulders were tucked up tight and high, the way they are when he’s anxious, until I watch them fall. “I’ll go, too,” he says. He looks like he wants to say more, ask more. But he doesn’t.
“We’ll do it for Mia,” I tell him.
He sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
“But…” I lean my shoulder into his and say, “I do have one condition.”
Alex glances over at me. With how close I’ve put myself, leaning into him, our noses nearly brush. His eyes hold mine. “So help me god, if you say it’s a gas station hot dog…”
“No.” I smile. “You’ve ruined me for every other hot dog now.”
He smiles, too, slow and satisfied. “Glad to hear it.” As the wind drags a tendril of hair into my face, Alex combs it back, tucking it behind my ear. “What is it?” he asks. “This condition?”
“We have to kick their asses at euchre.”
His eyebrows lift. “We’re playing euchre with them?”
“That’s the Bruscato beach vacation tradition, is it not? Kids in bed, cards on the table.”
He grimaces. “I was picturing more of a ‘play nice while Mia’s awake, go our separate ways the moment she’s in bed’ type of ‘two-family’ vacation.”
“Well,” I say, “me, too. But I really don’t think I can pass up the chance to crush them at cards.” I give him big sad-puppy eyes, a pathetic pleading pout. “At least one night?”
Alex’s mouth twists, then twitches at the corner. His I’m exasperated with Thea smile. He rolls his eyes. “Fine, Ted. One night. But just one night. This vacation is going to be rough enough as it is. Deal?”
I stare at him, trying to unravel the knot of worry twisting my stomach.
A beach vacation with our exes. The last thing I need is to spend that much time around people who press my tender points and dredge up the aches of the past, who see Alex and me as the very thing I will never risk us becoming.
This vacation will be hard, Alex is right. It’ll be Ethan and Jen versus Thea and Alex, and “Thea and Alex” is a concept I already have a hard enough time keeping in its safe, sure place. Friend love. Steady love. Love that can never crash and burn and break our hearts.
Resting my head on Alex’s shoulder, I cling to what I always tell myself. That I’m good at being content with this; that what we have is enough; and that we’ve stayed this way, just friends, for a reason. Because wanting anything more could end in losing everything.
And then I tell him, from the same spot on his stoop, the same thing I did, two years ago, “Deal.”