Page 34 of Well, Actually
I laugh so hard a few heads turn, and I disguise it as a cough.
“He’s shifting from pathetically contrite to righteous indignation,” Aida relays without moving her lips.
“A terrible move,” Cooper says, eyes widening, body vibrating with the urge to turn and stare. It isn’t until he looks at me, gaze bouncing to my mouth and lingering there for a beat too long, that I realize how big I’m smiling at him. I fix my lips into a flat line.
“She’s pointing her finger in his face now,” Ray says breathlessly. “Man is beet red. He’s looking around for an exit like a passenger on a crashing plane.”
“Now he’s templing his fingers and pressing them to his mouth. I repeat, his fingers are templed,” I say, watching as the guy tries on the impassive look of a tech-bro posing for a magazine spread. The sweat running down the sides of his face makes his inner peace look less than convincing.
“Oh my god, she’s—” Ray’s voice is cut off as the womanstands up from the table and raises her voice so loud that no one would blame Cooper for turning and looking.
“Yeah?” the woman bellows, sizing up her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend from tip to toe. “Well, I fucked your cousin on Memorial Day so I guess we’re even.” With a soap opera actress’s level of flair and precision, she picks up her champagne flute and splashes the contents in the man’s face. “And just so you know, being with her was the first time I didn’t have to fake it in over a year, you lazy prig.”
My jaw crashes to the floor as I gasp. Cooper whips his head to me, his expression a mirror image of my own. We watch with a healthy mix of shock and admiration as the woman storms out, muttering something about giving the cousin a call. A full minute later, with an audible sigh and a ducked head, the man pulls out a few bills from his wallet, drops them on the table, then scuttles to the exit.
The entire restaurant holds its breath in a weighted silence, scared to disrupt the bubble of drama we just witnessed.
“Cheers to his cousin,” Cooper stage-whispers, restarting time as our group breaks into nervous laughter. We raise our glasses, and Cooper’s eyes meet mine over the rim.
“I’ve never seen something like that,” Aida says, shaking her head, then taking a long sip.
“Brunch is truly the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, of a relationship’s lifespan,” Ray says sagely, making me snort like a piglet.
I slap my hand over my nose, and I don’t know why the first place I shyly look to is Cooper. His gunpowder eyes sparkas they hold mine, crinkled at the corners as he smiles at me. Like he heard me. Like he loved the sound. Like he’s calculating howhecan make me laugh in such an unfiltered way.
A few slutty little curls tumble across his forehead as he studies me, and I have the disarming impulse to reach across the table and run my fingers through them, push his hair back and cup his cheek in a way motivated by far more tenderness than when I touched him a few minutes ago. My palms still burn with the memory of the contact.
Ray says something witty and biting, and the conversation tumbles in a million different directions with the electricity of the drama. I focus on the sweat of my water glass, watching the cool droplets roll to the table, trying not to think of anything else.
Everyone shares anecdotes of the wildest things we’ve seen in this bizarre city, and at some point, we order food and dig in.
“This burger will heal me,” Lilith says, taking a giant luxurious bite. She lets out a happy moan, eyes closing. “Yup. All my problems have been solved.”
“Poor Lil’s been under a mountain of stress lately,” Cooper says, patting her back as he takes a bite of his breakfast burrito. “I had to force her to come out with me.”
“A tactic you use on everyone in your life, then?”
Cooper’s eyes flick to me, and he winks. My cheeks flush, and I hide my misplaced smile with a sip of my drink.
“What’s stressing you, Lilith?” Aida asks, ready to cortisol commiserate at any given moment.
Lilith slumps in her chair, pushing her hair back. “I’mfinalizing the details of this huge fundraiser my organization is hosting in a few weeks, and it’s taken several years off my life.”
“What’s the fundraiser for?”
Even through her palpable exhaustion, she beams. “We’re starting this new series at EI, getting a bunch of guest speakers and experts to come and talk to the kids about what healthy queer relationships look like, and the fundraiser will be the main source of financing for it. It’s been a long time in the making, and it’s wrung me dry, to be honest.”
“I love it,” Aida says, lifting her glass toward Lilith.
“I can’t even tell you how much I could have used something like that,” Ray adds, leaning toward her. “I mean, hell, I couldstilluse something like that. There’s so little out there representing happy, healthy romantic relationships for folx. You should be very proud of what you’re doing. It’s filling a huge need for queer youth.”
“Thank you,” Lilith says, bowing her head. “It was Rylie’s idea, actually.”
I shoot a skeptical glance at Cooper as he chokes on a sip of his drink. He frantically waves his hands. “Don’t listen to her. She’s giving me way too much credit.”
“I’mnot…”
“Youare,” Cooper says, fixing her with a stern look. After a beat, he turns to us, expression softening. “We were watching a movie and all I said was that I would love for there to be a sort of queer renaissance of Meg Ryan–esque rom-coms. That it’d probably be really impactful for younger people to grow up with a backlist like that.”
