Thirty-Seven Arya
thirty-seven
Arya
How’re you doing?” Ramin asked, sticking their drinks—iced raspberry hibiscus for Arya, hot tea for himself—into the cupholders while Arya got his car going and cranked up the air-conditioning.
Well, not cranked; the car had a touch screen that controlled the AC, so every time he adjusted the climate controls it felt like beaming someone up.
He’d kill for some basic knobs or something.
Kansas City summers were beautiful, up until they were brutal. Arya felt like he could’ve swum through the humid air. His skin was coated in a sheen of perspiration that never evaporated.
Why they’d picked an August day when they were sweating their balls off to go look at suits was beyond Arya’s comprehension.
They’d both have swampass. But Ramin, Farzan, and Arya all had the day off for once, so they were taking Ramin to look at suits.
He and Noah had decided to get their suits separately to have at least a little bit of surprise at their low-key wedding.
Farzan had to run to Restaurant Depot first, so he was meeting them at the tailor’s.
Arya buckled his seat belt and checked his mirrors. “I’m fine. And I still don’t want to talk about it.”
Arya had hoped to keep a lid on his breakup. But when Ben hadn’t shown up at kickball Saturday, and Farzan asked why Arya wasn’t calling him or running to his house to check on him, Arya had been forced to spill everything.
He’d also told his friends he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Today’s about you, anyway. Okay? You’re getting married.” Arya forced as much cheer into his voice as he could. “My best friend is getting married!”
Ramin gave him a dimply smile and sipped his hot tea.
How he could drink a hot beverage in the middle of summer was a mystery to Arya, until he remembered his own mother probably had the teapot going at her house right now.
And his father was probably drinking hot tea back in Yazd, where it was over 110 degrees most days in the summer.
That was one Iranian gene that seemed to have missed him, somehow.
Arya still hadn’t talked to his dad. He’d texted with his mom a bit—she always asked him if he needed anything whenever she went to the grocery store—but he hadn’t seen her since their fight.
Arya shook the ice in his drink and took another slurp through the weird mouth hole.
His favorite coffee shop on Wyandotte had made the switch from straws to these lids with little mouth spouts a couple years back, and Arya was sure they were more eco-friendly, but that didn’t make them easy to drink out of.
The tailor was in a little co-op space in the Crossroads. The whole thing was queer-owned, filled with art studios and little consignment stores and even a tattoo parlor. Pride stickers and pictures of Judy Garland and Marsha P. Johnson festooned the walls.
They got buzzed into the aptly named Gailor’s Shop and were met by a short, fat, butch tailor with a pompadour, beard, gold-framed glasses, and a twinkly smile.
“You must be Ramin!” they said, shaking Ramin’s hand and sweeping him inside. “I’m River. Yes, another nonbinary person with a nature name. Groundbreaking. Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes.”
“What jokes?” Ramin asked innocently.
River guffawed. “Right. And who’s this?”
“Arya,” he said, shaking River’s hand. “I do know about the jokes.”
River winked at him. “Good man. So, I’m gonna have your buddy try on a few things and go from there. Sound good?”
Ramin let himself be pulled toward the dressing room. “Oh, my other groomsman should be here soon.”
“You can let him in,” River told Arya, ushering Ramin back to a changing room. “Just hit the green button to unlock the door.”
“Gotcha.”
Arya sipped his hibiscus and let Farzan in when he showed up.
“Hey. Sorry. Did I miss anything?” Farzan asked, running a hand through his messy hair.
“He’s still trying on the first one. Also, the tailor is nonbinary and their name is River, and they’ve heard all the jokes.”
Farzan snorted. “Good. How’re you doing?”
“Fine.”
Farzan flattened his lips and stared. Arya’s stomach squirmed.
He hated when Farzan did this. Looked at him like he could see right through Arya’s bullshit. Which he could. So could Ramin, but Ramin was better at letting Arya pretend he was getting away with it.
He was saved by Ramin emerging in a sleek three-piece suit. It didn’t fit him right, but it was close enough in size to get a feel for it. Arya had been fitted for enough suits himself that he could see how it would look.
This one was charcoal gray, with wide lapels. Arya hated it.
“What do you think?” River asked.
“It’s a little… I don’t know.” Ramin swallowed.
“Boring?” Arya offered.
Ramin flinched, glanced at River in the mirror, and nodded.
“I think so, too, but you never know,” River said. “What about the cut, though?”
Ramin looked at himself in the mirror. He caught Farzan looking and nodded in hello. “I feel like the lapels are a bit… huge? I feel like an eighties superhero.”
River laughed. “Okay, good to know. No eighties lapels. Got it.” They dragged Ramin back into the dressing room.
Arya and Farzan sat next to each other on the overstuffed floral couch.
“So how are things at the Bistro?” Arya had missed their last Thursday dinner.
“Same old, same old,” Farzan said. “Oh! My dad is pissed off at Mr. Nakhjavani. He’s convinced he’s been cheating at hokm, but Mr. Nakhjavani’s from Kerman and insists the rules are different there. It’s been a whole thing.”
Arya snorted. He loved Farzan’s dad. Firouz Alavi was nearly as good a chef as his son, and a generous host, and everything Arya always wished his own dad had been.
They were interrupted by Ramin emerging again, this time in a khaki suit that looked absolutely heinous against his skin.
It must’ve shown on their faces, because Ramin turned back around without even waiting.
River poked their head out, though. “You two are no fun!”
Arya had done a lot of parts of wedding planning, but he’d never sat in on a fitting, and truthfully, he’d never understood why people got so emotional about it.
That is, until Ramin emerged in a seafoam green suit that matched his eyes, with a cream white shirt and a rich brown tie the color of a forest floor. The cut was immaculate, hanging just right at his shoulders and wrists, legs tapering to his ankles, with not a pleat in sight.
It was perfect.
Something bubbled up in Arya then, stronger than the finest champagne. His eyes welled up.
Ramin—his best friend—looked so handsome then. He had a huge, dimpled smile, and he looked at once like the boy Arya had known and the kind, responsible, loving man he’d become.
Arya couldn’t help it. He started crying, smiling all the while. Next to him, Farzan was tearing up, too.
“I think this is the one,” Ramin said.
“If those two blubberers are any indication,” River agreed.
Farzan took pictures while River started pinning the suit in place, marking alterations with their tailor’s chalk, asking about dates and shoes and what Noah would be wearing and what the groomsmen would be wearing.
But Arya didn’t hear any of it. He was crying in earnest now.
His best friend was getting married.
He was in love, and he was getting married, and Arya had spent so much of his life never wanting that, and he still didn’t want that, the marriage part at least, but he’d had a partner for the first time in, well, ever, and it had felt nice, it had felt right, it had felt so fucking good.
It had felt like love.
Arya hadn’t known what that feeling was, that feeling he always got when he was with Ben. When Ben smiled at him. When their hands brushed. When they sat together, close but not even touching, just sharing the space. He’d told himself it was fondness. It was comfort.
But now that it had been ripped away—now that everything had crumbled to dust—he knew what it was.
It was love.
It was love, and it had all fallen apart anyway. He’d let it fall apart.
He and Ben were through, and the worst part of it was, he couldn’t even ghost Ben. He still had to see him once a week. See him and fucking Justin, as they planned this ridiculous charity ball.
Arya sniffed and excused himself, saying he had to go to the bathroom (not untrue, the hibiscus had gone right through him), but he couldn’t risk ruining Ramin’s big moment. Ramin deserved better than that.
Arya might have ended up being a shit boyfriend, but he was a damned good friend.
“You gonna tell us why you disappeared earlier?” Ramin asked quietly as their server seated them.
After Ramin’s fitting, he’d insisted on treating them to some Italian food.
Since his trip to Italy, Ramin had become quite the connoisseur of Kansas City’s Italian restaurant scene.
The place he picked for them today was a hole-in-the-wall on the Westside that had started off only offering handmade pasta to go, but now offered lunches and dinners a few times a week at their three small tables.
(Five if you counted the tables on the sidewalk outside, but it was still hot as balls, so no thank you please.)
Arya sighed and made a show of studying his menu, all five items on it. “I had to pee.”
“Arya,” Farzan said softly, resting a hand on Arya’s arm. “This is us.”
It was them. That was the problem.
Farzan had a restaurant to run, a boyfriend to spend time with, parents he loved, a life to live.
Ramin had a fucking wedding to plan.
How could Arya bring them down with his shit?
He was supposed to be sharing crazy stories about running out of a hookup with a guy who had a laxative kink.
Or the guy who had left Mary Poppins playing in the background while they had sex.
Or the guy who’d wanted to try pup play but didn’t want to be the pup or the master, and when Arya had asked him what other option there was, had kicked Arya out of his house without giving him a chance to get dressed.
(Thankfully Arya had managed to grab his clothes and pull them on in the driveway before anyone saw.)
Arya shared hilarious anecdotes!
Not heartbreak.