Page 3 of Advanced Chemistry

Everett jolted up, as did Julian and me. For the past year, Amos had been dating his boyfriend Hutch, who coached the South Rock soccer team on the very field where we were eating. They’d been living together for months. Was this the next logical step?

“Congratulations!” Julian said, hand partially over his mouth.

“Holy shit. That’s awesome.” Everett squeezed Amos’s shoulder.

“This does make sense. You and Hutch have been dating and cohabitating for a substantial amount of time. Marriage is the next logical step,” I said.

“Um, so it’s not me and Hutch getting married, but I love the support.” Amos turned red at his unfortunate misdirection. “Pop is.”

Pop was Hutch’s dad, a very kind man who’d also been dating his girlfriend for about a year. Even though he wasn’t our father, he had us call him Pop. Except for Amos, it was likely none of us knew his actual name. It was an exciting development—less exciting than if Amos was the one getting married—but still exciting all the same.

“It probably would’ve been better for you to say right off the bat that Pop was getting married,” I said, trying to explain our reactions. “Rather than asking us to guess. Something to keep in mind the next time you have big news.”

The guys blinked at me, much like my students. I was very much used to these looks.

“Chase is right, but this is still great news,” Julian said.

“We love Pop. We are pro-Pop around here. Has Hutch gotten over the fact that his dad is dating and now marrying his doctor?” Everett asked. Pop had a heart condition last spring, and when he was discharged from the hospital, he left with a clean bill of health and a new girlfriend. It sounded like one big HIPAA violation, but they were very sweet together. The man very much had the gift of charm that people like me were not born with. It was no surprise that he swept his doctor off her feet while hooked up to tubes.

“Hutch will be okay. We love Dr. Kumar. I guess we can call her Sarita. Or, I guess…we’ll be calling her Mom?” Amos scratched his head. “No, I think we’ll still call her Dr. Kumar. But I haven’t even gotten to the best part: Pop wants us to be his groomsmen!”

Everett and Julian cheered the news, while I waited for more information on what it would entail.

“He loves you guys and wants you to be part of the wedding,” Amos said. We’d spent many dinners and barbecues with Pop. I had no relationship with my dad, so it was possible to interpret him as a sort of father figure. He never knew what I was talking about with my chemistry lessons, but he always acted interested.

“I’ll try not to upstage him,” Everett said. “I pull off suits very well.”

Julian laughed to himself. He had lush brown locks of hair that framed his full face. “When’s the wedding?” he asked.

“Mid-July,” Amos said.

“That’s only two months away. They can plan a wedding in that time?” Julian asked.

“Pop doesn’t want to drag this out for obvious reasons,” Amos said.

“Because he had a heart attack, mortality is constantly on his mind?” I asked to make sure I understood the obvious reasons.

“Oh Chase.” Amos clapped my shoulder.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You know what this means?” Everett twiddled his fingers together, the telltale sign of mischief. “It’s time to find Chase a wedding date.”

I shoved my Twinkie in my mouth, letting the sugar high drown out their voices.

“Yes!” Julian excitedly nodded his head, as did Amos.

“We’re going to scroll through our available inventory of guys for you,” said Amos. “Statistically, taking a date to a wedding has a higher chance of ending in love.”

“According to who? What is your sample size? Are they demographically representative of the general population? Are you employing a control group?” My friends were wonderful people, but they had little respect for the field of statistics or the scientific method in general.

“Raleigh and I got together at a wedding,” said Everett of him and his boyfriend, a gym teacher at South Rock.

“Seamus and I finally got together at an anniversary party, which is like a wedding,” said Julian of his boyfriend, who taught Spanish.

“That’s just a coincidence,” I said. “Correlation is not causation.”

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