5. Meg
MEG
Boring.
Boring, as if a woman saying no to a velvet room is the same thing as a woman saying no to herself.
“Aqua, ask me what I would most like to do to a luxury sedan,” I say, not looking up from the till as I count down the drawer to open.
Aqua Tofana, in full drag—six-and-a-half feet of glam queen with wing eyeliner so sharp it could sign a declaration—does not miss a beat.
She’s not trans, but I think of her as trans-adjacent.
Sometimes, she comes in as her legal identity—John Grady.
Those are he/him days. But when she’s Aqua, she/her.
“Key it,” she says, nails flashing like righteous knives as she cuts a biscotti for sampling. “And then I’d like to do a delicate, artful, Jackson Pollock tire slashing. Just like…expressive, honey. Cathartic. You say when.”
“It would be so satisfying,” I say, and let myself picture it for half a second. “But you would get caught.”
“Rude.”
“You are a skyscraper in heels. You’re also a beloved neighborhood institution. There’s a difference between poetic justice and an arrest record.”
She props a hip against the pastry case and points to the framed photo of Aunt Bea by the register. “Your aunt would bail me out from beyond the grave.”
“She would,” I admit, smiling even as my stomach flips. “Hell, I would. But you don’t want a record.”
Aqua’s laugh is all bell and glitter. “Fine. I will not key his precious car.” She makes a face. “Tonight. I won’t do it tonight. Tomorrow is another day.”
The bell chimes, and the first regular of the day comes in, stomping rain off boots.
I slide back into my opening rhythm. Grind, tamp, steam, pour.
Smile, mean it, take a breath. I chase the memories of Callie and Luke with the sizzle of the milk wand and the way Aqua flicks a wrist to add a flourish to the tip jar sign that says Bee generous .
“I keep thinking about that word,” I mutter during a lull. “Boring. Like he’d been saving it for when I didn’t behave.”
Aqua leans over the counter, close enough that I can see the handlaid crystals at the corner of her eye.
“You didn’t behave the way he wanted you to,” she says, voice soft for once.
“And what a joy for me, personally. But also—listen to how you talked about last night. You let him do things.” She lifts a brow. “You hear it?”
I blow out a breath that smells like coffee and denial. “I did not say I wanted things.”
“No,” she says. “You said you let him.” She taps the counter with one perfect nail. “Wanting is the opposite of boring. Letting is…passing the buck.”
“I wanted us to not be flat,” I say, then wince. “Which is the flattest sentence.”
“So you agreed to things that didn’t thrill you because compromise is noble in your mind,” she says, singsong like she’s narrating a cautionary tale.
“Except compromising on dinner is not the same as compromising on your body. You don’t owe anyone enthusiasm except yourself.
Going along with what someone else wants is the barest, saddest kind of consent, honey. You did the right thing.”
I hate it when Aqua is right. I love it too. “I don’t want to be a person who only surprises herself when somebody else is steering.”
“Then don’t,” she says simply, as if it’s not the hardest instruction in the world.
The day rolls over me. My other baristas show up, mostly on time.
Tom cracks jokes about the weather being against capitalism.
Bex sets out the honey-butter samples, complaining about the state of the music scene.
Aqua holds court at the register, calling everyone darling and sweetheart and sir and madam depending on who needs which word to feel like they chose it.
All day, Aqua’s words ring in my head louder than a commuter’s phone. Want . Wanting is louder than I’m used to. I’m good at duty. Great at it. I am a champion at showing up and staying. Wanting feels like a language I used to speak and then put away because other people needed me.
“Say it,” Aqua says.
“What?” I blink up from the pastry fridge.
“What you want to do about it.”
I think about tequila and the boys’ faces and that black dress pushed into my bag under a sweater because I couldn’t stand to look at it on the chair. “I want to not think about him for a night.”
“Ah,” she says, pleased. “Then my remedy applies.”
“What remedy?”
“The oldest one in the book, baby. Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” She flicks her lashes. “We could go out. Plenty of eligible, eager, firm adult men would volunteer as tribute.”
I laugh, at first. I’m not the one-night stand type.
But then Hudson’s face flashes in my head. Rocco’s laugh. Oliver’s steady hands. They’ve been the antidote to most poisons in my life since middle school. Why would tonight be any different?
The thought arrives whole. Not strangers, not a blurry club, not someone whose name I’d have to ask twice. Them . Because I trust them with my worst day. Because the sound of their laughter resets my pulse.
“I don’t want to go out,” I say softly.
Aqua’s eyes go bright in a way that means she is fully, deeply here for this. “Oh?”
“I want to go home,” I say, and the word means their place. It always has. “I want to…ask for what I want. Without getting talked out of it.”
“Who do you have in mind, because I can see it in your eyes that you’ve already got a plan.”
I bite my lip. “This stays between us, right?”
“You have my most solemn vow.”
“My best friends?—”
“All three?” Her eyes go wide.
I swallow. “Not boring now, am I?”
Aqua makes a delighted little clap. “My feral feminist heart is fed. Between Fitz the model?—”
“He’s not a model.”
“No, he just looks like one.” She grins. “Between Fitz the model, Rocco the giant Italian dreamboat, and Hudson the black-haired bad boy, you have quite the selection of fun ahead of you. I am so excited to hear how this goes. I’ll need details. Every last one.”
I snort a laugh and roll my eyes. “We have to close first…”
“On it.”
We close like we always do—fast and precise. Counters sprayed and wiped. Syrups restocked. The register counted down and tucked into the drop. The store is reset for the next morning. Aqua hangs the CLOSED sign and flips the dead bolt. “They’re not going to know what hit them.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, and she cackles. I roll my eyes and fetch my bag. “I need to stop at the store.”
“For condoms?” she asks.
“For tequila,” I say, and then add, because her eyebrows would otherwise crawl into her wig, “for courage.”
“Hydrate. Eat first. And if any one of those boys so much as looks unsure, you do not proceed.”
“I would never push them on this.”
She kisses my cheek, lipstick careful. “Text me an emoji when you get there.”
“What emoji means ‘I’m going to make a very good bad decision?’”
She considers. “Bee with the little hearts.”
“Sold.”
The sky is thinking about snow; the air has that metallic taste.
I cut across two blocks to the bodega that stocks the tequila we used to pass around at bonfires after away games, because rituals matter.
I grab chips and limes and a sleeve of plastic shot cups because we’ve learned our lesson about dishes at midnight.
When I get there, Hudson opens the door faster than any human should be able to open a door.
Rocco is two steps behind him, hair damp from a shower, hoodie soft enough to sleep inside.
Oliver—Fitz to the city, Oliver in my mouth—leans on the kitchen counter with that open stance that says this is your home too.
“I brought supplies,” I say, lifting the bag like a peace offering.
Oliver grins. “Are we doing a science experiment?”
“In a way,” I say, and my voice only shakes a little. “Shots?”
Hudson blinks. “Bad idea.”
“Two. For encouragement. Then water. Then decisions.”
Rocco laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “You have a plan.”
“You all taught me to love a good pregame.”
We move around each other like the kitchen designed itself to hold us. Lime wedges. Salt. Cups lined up. Chips in a bowl because I am not a monster.
“To new chapters,” Oliver says, raising his cup. It sounds so earnest it makes me smile and wince at the same time.
“To not being boring,” I say, and we all wince at that for different reasons.
The tequila warms the path down. It doesn’t blur anything. I chase it with water and breathe until my heartbeat stops auditioning for a drumline.
Hudson leans his hip against the counter and looks at me like I have the floor. “What’s the experiment? You don’t have to say it. You can say, ‘Never mind,’ and we’ll watch that dumb show about the tiny houses again.”
I shake my head. “I want to ask for what I want.”
“Okay,” Rocco says. “Ask.”
I knock another shot back and speak before I can stop myself. “I want all three of you. Tonight. In my bed. Three friends helping a friend become…un-boring. I’m done letting things happen to me. I am choosing . And I want yeses that sound like yeses . Because if they don’t, I don’t want it.”
Silence for a heartbeat. Then three yeses at the same time, layered like a chord. Hudson’s is a rumble, Rocco’s is a hum, Oliver’s is sun through blinds.
“No debating? No discussion?” I ask.
Three shrugs.
“Rules,” Oliver says, because of course he does.
“Rules,” I agree. “I want to know which words mean slow down and which words mean stop now. I want to laugh if something is awkward and not make it weird. I like knowing I’m doing it right.”
“You always do it right,” Hudson says, too fast, then blinks at himself. “Yes to all of that. Stop means stop. Slow down means slow down. If anyone says they need a break, we break.”
“Water on the nightstand,” Oliver adds. “Condoms in the drawer if you want them.”
“And lights we can see by,” Rocco says softly. “Not bright. Just enough.”
I nod. “And kissing.”
“Kissing,” Oliver repeats.
The three of them wear smirks that weren’t there before, and my heart kicks up. “Yes. Follow me.” Before I lose my nerve.