“Gay Chinese place? Over on Indian Canyon?”
“Not even close.”
“Then, no.”
Patrick glared at his guest skeptically. “When’d you graduate high school?”
Emory attempted a quick calculation in his head. “I don’t know. I took a test.” He scratched his chin. “When was Obama president?”
“Oh, god,” Patrick muttered while pouring two glasses of vodka; it was worse than he thought. He tipped himself a little extra before handing a glass to Emory. “Cheers.”
They tapped glasses without breaking eye contact and then Patrick led him back to the living room.
“Still Christmas, I see.” Emory glanced at the artificial tree. Patrick looked up, surprised, startled to see so much pink tinsel. It had sort of faded into the general décor; he hardly noticed it as out of place anymore. The tree had become a strange heart to the home, the white lights nestled deep in its branches pumping a flattering Pepto Bismol glow to their evenings. It was a salve when things felt unsettled.
“It’s sort of a tie-a-yellow-ribbon thing. Their dad gets back next week. I told them they could leave it up.”
“Yellow ribbon? It’s pink.”
Patrick sipped his vodka, letting it warm his throat. “Iran hostages? Yellow ribbons around old oak trees? Tony Orlando and Dawn?!”
Emory shrugged.
“Wang Chung is a band, by the way.”
“Are you sure? Because it sounds made-up.”
“It was the eighties. Everything sounded made-up.” Patrick rattled off a list of bands in his head: T’Pau, Kajagoogoo . . . Bananarama. “People did a lot of coke.”
Emory stared at him blankly.
Patrick cleared his throat. “Not that I’m old enough to remember.”
His guest kicked off a pair of tennis shoes so white that Patrick wondered if he didn’t clean them with Windex. Emory tucked a bare foot underneath him on the couch, leaning into the corner of the sectional. “So, are you like a dad now?”
It was a loaded question, and Patrick was at a loss for a smart comeback. He allowed himself to get lost in Emory’s face. He didn’t have the facial architecture that normally sent people scrambling; his nose was crooked in that sexy broken way, and his eyes were almost too far apart. It was inviting. It worked on him with an effortless ease, as if he’d practiced for years making his features work in concert, then committing it to memory so he could forget it all and project a certain nonchalance. The way he smiled out of one corner of his mouth was a perfect example. He probably learned all this in an acting class, or worse—a class on auditioning.
Is that what he was doing here? Auditioning?
“No, they have a father. I told you. He’s coming home next week.”
“I was talking about your mustache.”
Patrick felt his cheeks redden.
“It looks good. I’ll bet it tickles.” Emory stretched out his leg to give Patrick a gentle kick, then left his foot resting against his shin. He was wearing pants that were part sweat, part yoga with a drop crotch that hid everything and highlighted nothing, and yet were deeply provocative. Perhaps it was the ease with which they could be removed. “Don’t you go stir-crazy out here?” he asked. “What do you miss about LA?”
“Nothing.”
“C’mon.”
Patrick searched for an answer that was both benign and honest. “Everyone seems genuinely happy here. I’m baseline distrustful of it.”
“So, unease is what you miss.”
“Anxiety. Unease. You live in LA long enough, it becomes part of who you are.”
Emory leaned forward to set his drink on a wooden cutout of Cher’s face that people mistook for a coaster. “You’re a mess.”
It wasn’t even that accusatory, the charge. There was even some tacit acknowledgment in the delivery that everyone was a mess to varying degrees, and that much was hard to argue. But in this moment Patrick felt more together than he had in a long time and so he was unnerved by Emory’s words.
“Don’t worry,” Emory said, picking up on the look on Patrick’s face. “I like a good mess. They can be fun to clean up.”
Patrick studied the way Emory sat in front of him, face plastered with a goofy smile. It wasn’t like the diagnosis came from Clara, or someone else whose words would be charged. Still, something about it flustered him. “How are things on The Cracker Barrel?”
“Tillamook?”
“Sure.”
They stared at each other for a long time, until Emory looked down to pick something off his shirt. “Dumb. They’re doing this supernatural story line, which means it’s probably the last season. We start shooting next week. This time next year I’ll be old and washed-up. Just like you.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes. “You’re really good at this.”
“At what?”
“Being a dick, but like in a really attractive way.”
“Does that mean I can stay?”
He raised his hands like paws to beg. Patrick found it impossible to put his finger on Emory’s appeal. He was a chimera constructed of so many gay archetypes—twink, jock, otter, nerd—inhabiting none of them with anything resembling exclusivity. He even gave off some faint dad vibes himself in the way that twenty-seven-year-olds seem to relish growing a whisper of facial hair and anointing themselves with that crown as if three chin hairs transformed them into a Tom of Finland drawing. Emory embraced conformity while eschewing it, all while seemingly floating above it. Patrick didn’t know whether to love him, hate him, admire him, embrace him, fuck him, or kick him to the nearest curb.
“Listen,” Patrick began before glancing back over his shoulder to the kids’ bedrooms. “I would like that. But now’s not the right time.”
“You’re so sad.”
“Pathetic?”
“No. Downcast. It’s different. That’s all.”
Patrick was taken aback. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.” But Emory didn’t wait for Patrick to do so. “It’s just. Gay people have a sad history, but most of us, we overcome it. We’re kicked out of our small-town families, then embrace cities and make new families and build brilliant lives. We were beaten, and so we became strong, and now our bodies are
