I nodded in agreement. "I wish I'd been able to retake exams when I was a kid. It would've preserved some shred of my sanity. All I did was worry about one test or another." I shook my head and moved another paper to the top of my stack. "I tried to walk the sixth graders through some in-the-moment coping strategies last week because they were a hot, messy mess during my review session."
"The first round of term-end assessments always freaks them out," Max said. "They go from the calm, loving embrace of Audrey's fifth grade to this middle school hellscape where they have different teachers, different classrooms, a different bell schedule, and summative exams." He straightened his stack and tucked them into the Brattle Book Shop canvas tote I used for graded papers. The NPR tote held the ungraded ones. The NPR tote was rarely empty. "But they have you to help them through those growing pains even if Avila goes and scares the shit out of them in the math block."
"Isn't that the truth."
My colleagues were incredible. The best of the best. Juliana Avila, the math instructor, was as tough as nails. What I offered our students in grounding techniques, she met with stone-faced, no-nonsense, and high expectations. She loved the kids, and she loved the work, but it looked different on her than it did on me. Neither of us was right or wrong. Teaching styles and demeanors varied, and that was a good thing. Kids needed all different kinds of role models and connection points. A fine example of that came in my colleagues in the English and history departments.
Clark Kerrin and Noa Elbaz argued about everything but they did it in a painfully polite way that cut and sliced until they were nothing more than finely shredded echoes of people. And somehow, they did this while making the students think it was a funny little game, a rivalry of sorts, like cross-town high school football teams. I had to believe they had styles independent of this ongoing rivalry, but I couldn't imagine them without each other.
"Are you almost ready to pack this up?" Max asked. "We can finish the rest tomorrow."
"I have to grade lab reports tomorrow," I replied as I counted up the incorrect responses and scribbled that number at the bottom of the page. "Give me five minutes. I'll get these done."
Max reached across the table. "Give me a few more. We'll do this together."
* * *
Max's friends Tom and Wes hosted tonight's gathering in their South End brownstone. We'd been here once before for game night and the place was decorated like a chic magazine spread, all one-of-a-kind pieces mixed with modern glam and earthy neutrals.
It was the perfect fit for them, though, to be fair, I didn't know Wes at all. I'd met him at the game night event but we'd sat with different groups on opposite sides of the apartment and shared little more than polite greetings and goodbyes. Tom, however, I'd grown friendly with in recent weeks. We had a bit in common and picked up each other's vibe right away. Our tendencies ran toward nerdy, high strung, and bespectacled with funky ties. Others saw us as remote or closed off, we worked a lot more than was healthy, and we were attached to large, gregarious men.
Tom and Wes got engaged over the summer and were still in the date-setting phase. Last I'd heard from Tom, Wes's business travel schedule had kept him on the go in recent months, but they were hoping to make some decisions over the holidays.
Tom worked on the finance and holdings side of an architecture firm. I didn't have a full accounting of the facts, and Tom was particularly tight-lipped on the matter, but as best I could gather, Wes trained private military and spy forces for a living. I couldn't say I'd ever met someone in that profession before.
Max's friends were as important to him as his family and our colleagues. There was no future for us if I couldn't get one of these guys on my side, and I was thankful he counted a quiet, bookish boy like Tom among his favorite people.
A bright, true grin split my face when the door swept open and I saw Tom on the other side. "You made it," he shouted over the noise behind him. "Come here, come here." He held his arms wide and closed us into a crushing group hug. "So happy you're here."
"You make it sound like you haven't seen us in a decade. Pretty sure it hasn't been more than two weeks." Max pressed a bottle of champagne into Tom's hand. "Happy holidays, young man."
Tom held the bottle out to study the label. "You shouldn't have," he yelped. "What are you doing, bringing the good bubbles into my house. Are you trying to get me naked, Murphy?"
From literal thin air, Wes appeared, his blond brows arching down as he asked, "What was that?"
Tom angled the champagne toward his fiancé. "Max and Jory brought the good stuff."
"I never did get you an engagement gift," Max said with a shrug.
It was curious how he made it seem as though his gestures weren't deliberate. Almost like it was better—simpler, perhaps—to be the lovable goofball instead of the thoughtful, intentional man.
Wes hooked a beefy arm around Max's neck and pulled him in for a hug that looked more like wrestling than an embrace. Tom eyed them for
