“Old man,” Carlos growled, putting an arm around her, “you’d better stay out of things that don’t concern you.”
“Carlos,” Ted said warningly.
“What, he gets to say whatever he wants but I have to be polite?”
Why had Rafi come to this dinner? Would it be the end of the world if he crawled under the table and escaped?
“Mr. Gault, sir,” said the hostess at the doorway, and everyone stopped talking and looked up.
“Julian. There you are.” Rafi felt a wash of warm relief—that Julian had forgiven him, to some extent at least, and that he now had an ally on the premises. He stood and pulled Julian’s chair out for him.
“Here I am.” Julian had outdone himself sartorially. Rafi had told him to dress ‘casual elegant, heavy on the elegant’ and worried about how stuffy that made his family sound. Now he felt underdressed, not because Julian looked any more formal than he did—he simply looked better. Rafi couldn’t have named a brand for his boots or charcoal-gray trousers, but they carried that intangible aura of extreme quality, and his silk shirt, deep purple with a pattern of silver fleur-de-lis, was fancier than anything Rafi owned. It brought out the purple notes in his opal bracelet. Around his neck was something closer to a cravat than a tie, bordered in purple, and his hair was styled in that perfect balance of sleek and soft and wind-tossed, like—well, like a movie star.
Instead of taking the proffered seat, Julian stepped into Rafi’s space as if he lived there, one possessive hand on his chest, and gave him a kiss, a little too long and intense to pass as mere affectionate greeting. Rafi felt his face heat, and tried not to gulp as Julian pulled back and took his seat.
“My apologies for the delay,” he said airily, and made no further excuse, giving the room a cool once-over that made Carlos’s face darken and Minnie’s mouth stiffen. Bo, to Rafi’s intense pleasure, looked as high-hackled as an angry cat. She’d have been flicking her tail if she’d had one.
“No worries, Julian, we’re just happy you could make it,” Rafi said. “Allow me to introduce my father, Ted Reyes; my stepmother, Minnie; my great-uncle Max; and of course my brother Carlos and…his fiancée, Bo Thomas.”
“A pleasure,” Julian said, rising to shake hands all around. “I’ve heard so much about you all.” His smile was polished and charming, and fell off his face when he got to Carlos and Bo.
“As we have about you,” Bo murmured, “assuming we’ve been reading the papers.”
“Didn’t hear a word from Rafi himself on that subject,” Ted grouched, “until he asked to bring you to dinner. I guess a father has to get used to his sons going out on their own, making their own choices.” It was Carlos he glanced at then, not Rafi.
The waiter had reappeared. “What can I get everyone to drink?”
A smattering of orders—tea, soda, a Shirley Temple for pregnant Bo and water with lemon for Julian. Which was just unnecessarily austere, and Rafi found it oddly endearing.
“How old are you, anyway? Twelve?” Carlos said to Julian as soon as the waiter had gone. “I didn’t peg Rafi for that type, but I guess you never can tell.”
Julian’s face went white, a stronger reaction than the stupid comment called for.
“I mean, you sure you don’t want chocolate milk? They might even bring you some crayons,” Carlos continued.
“He’s twenty-one years old,” Rafi began, but Julian cut him off.
“It’s good that you’re already thinking like a father, Carlos. How lucky for you that you look the part, too. The wrinkles, the gray hair—very distinguished.”
Carlos jolted like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He reached up to touch his hair, caught himself, and put his hand down. Bo was either eating her napkin or trying not to laugh.
Julian picked up his menu, ignoring Carlos. “What can you recommend for me, Rafi? Since a tiny child like me can’t be expected to order for myself.”
“The mushroom tartlets are a favorite of mine,” Rafi answered, pointing it out on the menu. Minnie was glaring at Julian; Rafi was a little afraid to glance at his father’s reaction.
Uncle Max looked vastly entertained, draining his glass of zabor and topping it up again. Once everyone had ordered and the waiter gone away, Max reached for the other glasses as well. “A toast! Come, everyone, toast!”
Ted’s face brightened. “Yes, a toast! We have a lot to celebrate at this gathering. New, uh—new love in the lives of both my sons, and of course, the baby.”
“I won’t be drinking,” Bo murmured.
“Of course, of course,” Ted said. “Raise your glass all the same. Everyone, raise your glass! Sorry about the zabor, but after all, it is tradition!”
Rafi cleared his throat, glancing at Julian. He doesn’t drink wouldn’t go over well with his father. A man didn’t just not drink; Ted had been sneaking Rafi zabor and beer since he was in seventh grade.
Ted had already noticed the hesitation, Julian’s hand tentative on the stem of his glass. His expression darkened at this hint that Julian was unwilling to drink a toast to his family.
To Rafi’s surprise, before he could intervene, Julian’s hand firmed. He met Ted’s eyes and lifted the glass.
Ted smiled in approval. “A toast to my first grandchild!”
“And so he will be, whichever way the paternity suit turns out,” Uncle Max said cheerfully, and tossed back his zabor to the sound of Carlos sputtering.
Drinking zabor was a lot like drinking dog urine and motor oil; Rafi, well accustomed, swallowed his with only a slight wince, and waited, napkin and water at the ready, for Julian’s inevitable coughing fit.
Julian made a tiny choking noise in his throat, his shoulders twitching, but he didn’t cough. He went very stiff and still, and swallowed, and dabbed his mouth delicately before accepting the water Rafi held out.
“What an unusual flavor,” he said, his voice hoarse but even.
Everyone had, of course, been watching intently, anticipating his reaction. Carlos pouted, but Ted laughed, smacking a fist against the table.
“A man after all! I congratulate you, Mr. Gault, on possessing an iron pair of balls. You’ll find this stuff goes down better the second time. You should have seen Rafi the first time he tried it! You would have thought I’d set his hair on fire.” Ted launched into a well-worn rendition of the tale of twelve-year-old Rafi’s first cup of zabor, to which everyone only half-attended.
“You don’t have to drink,” Rafi murmured, when Julian picked up his glass again.
“I do,” Julian answered, “if I’m going to impress your family, which is what I agreed to do. When I make a deal, I hold up my end.” He took another, hefty swallow, which made his eyes tear up and prompted Uncle Max to drum on the table in congratulations.
Family stories continued to be a theme, Rafi ducking his head sheepishly as Ted and Minnie related some of the hijinks he and Carlos had gotten up to as children. Julian, now on his second cup of zabor thanks to Uncle Max’s enthusiastic refills, raised an eyebrow at the tale of Rafi swearing a blue streak when he broke a toe during the school play, and laughed at the image of little Rafi jumping off the roof with a blanket-cape and an umbrella.
“Lucky boy only broke a leg and two ribs,” Ted said. “That thick skull probably kept him alive.”
“That was Carlos’s doing!” Rafi protested. “He had me convinced the umbrella would let me fly, like Mary Poppins!”
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it!” Carlos could hardly speak for laughing.
“Didn’t you?” Julian said thoughtfully. “If Rafi was four, you’d have been, hm, ten or eleven. Old enough to understand that jumping off a roof can be fatal.”
There was a very brief, very awkward silence. Bo’s eyes tracked sideways to Carlos uneasily.
“Oh, it was all in good fun, boys will be boys,” Minnie said, waving a dismissive hand. “Carlos himself always loved jumping off of things. Look, I’ve got a picture of him learning to hang gli
de, I don’t know how I survived that stress and worry…” She pulled out her wallet and flipped through the dozen or so photos in their clear sleeves, removing one to slide across the table. “Look, there’s my brave boy!”
“Oh, I remember that!” Rafi smiled down at the photo, sliding it along for Julian to see. He gave it a polite glance and passed it to Bo.
Bo fumbled the photo in picking it up, and it fluttered to the floor, dodging her attempts to catch it. She made an exasperated noise and tried to lean down for it, grunting as her belly got in the way.
“Here, let me,” Julian said quickly, and left his seat to pick it up for her. Rafi found it a little odd that, instead of returning to his seat, Julian pulled up the chair next to Bo and spoke to her, but his father was asking him about his convertible.
“Yes, it’s still in the shop,” Rafi said.
“Is it going to be an expensive repair?”
“I may have to scrap it, honestly—oof!” Uncle Max bumped Rafi on his way to Minnie, who was pulling out more pictures, and Rafi’s drink slopped over the rim. By the time he had that mopped up and could subtly turn his ear to Bo and Julian’s conversation, it had gotten…deep.
“And he doesn’t have to worry about getting me knocked up,” Julian was saying quietly, “so that opens up ever so many possibilities. I’d love to compare notes, actually, and see whether he’s always been as…adventurous as he is now.”
Bo, to Rafi’s surprise, smiled serenely. “See, now I know you’ve never slept with him.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“You’d never be able to talk about it so lightly. Not you, frigid little virgin that you are. I know what he’s like in bed, and you—it would break you.”
Julian snorted. “What, because I can’t handle the sheer force of his virility?”
“Oh, no, I mean quite the opposite.” Bo’s voice dropped so low that Rafi could only follow by watching her mouth. “All that power and strength dedicated entirely to your pleasure, gentle as a worshipper at the altar?” She looked Julian up and down, a dismissive flick of the eyes that made him bristle. “No, you’d be crying before he ever got your clothes off.”
Julian’s cheeks bore high red spots now, perhaps from alcohol, perhaps—not. He leaned closer to Bo. “You know what, you’re right. I am a virgin. Which means I am no man’s hand-me-down, passed from one brother to the next like a pair of boots.”
That was when Bo threw her drink in his face.
The room erupted in exclamations of alarm, and a bark of startled laughter from Max. Rafi jumped to his feet, already handing his napkin to Julian and gathering more. He didn’t have it in him to glare at Bo after what Julian had said to her, but he wasn’t about to cheer her on, either.
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” Bo said, with just enough plausible sincerity in her voice that no one could call her out on it. “I’m so clumsy these days—did you know pregnancy affects your joints? It’s the funniest thing.” She sat back and drained the last few drops from her glass as Rafi came around the table and helped Julian clean up.
Julian’s cravat was soaked; he pulled it off and laid it flat on the table. He seemed calm, even cheerful about the whole thing, rising up on his toes to peck Rafi on the cheek as Rafi dabbed grenadine off his face.
“What on earth did you say to my girl?” Carlos demanded, leaning across Bo to glare at Julian.
“Oh, my remark was thoroughly inappropriate. I don’t blame her a bit,” Julian said with a toothy smile. Rafi began leading him around the other end of the table, back to his own seat and away from Carlos.
Too late. Carlos was getting up, putting a possessive hand on Bo’s shoulder. “Baby, you want me to pound this shrimp into the dirt?”
“That won’t be necessary, Carlos,” Bo said, putting her hand over his. “Come on, let’s sit down and not ruin dinner for your parents.”
But the parents in question were distracted, Ted on his cell phone and relaying something from the phone to Minnie, who was writing it down. Ted always made an effort to be mentally present for these gatherings, but he was a busy man. Sometimes things intruded.
“Sit down,” Bo said again, and Carlos let himself be coaxed back into his seat. Rafi, pulling Julian’s chair out for him, wished the two were not directly across from each other.
They were saved by the arrival of the food, which looked and smelled good enough to distract even Uncle Max from the unfolding entertainment. Everyone began to eat, and conversation veered toward praise and critique of the food, leaving more dangerous topics behind.
Until Ted’s phone rang again.
“I’m so sorry, I’ve got to take this call. Please eat, I’ll be right back.”
With his father out of the room, Carlos was off the leash, and by the faint stir of tension through the room, all of them knew it. Minnie would never criticize her precious boy, and Max would only reach for the popcorn.
“I want to know what you said to my girl,” Carlos repeated, jaw set mulishly.
“Ask her, then, if you can get her to repeat it.”
“It’s not important, Carlos, let’s just eat—”
“Um…hello…?” A young black girl appeared in the doorway of their dining room, maybe sixteen and radiating nervous excitement.
“Oh, now what?” Carlos tossed a rolled napkin, heavy with silverware, across the room to smash into the wall. “Who the fuck are you?”
The girl jumped, eyes going wide. “I—I’m sorry—I’m a huge DK fan. I thought m-maybe—I’m sorry to bother you—”
Carlos rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air, turning away.
“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered, and began to slink away.
She’d had no right to creep into their family dinner, but still, Rafi couldn’t stand for this to be her encounter with a band she loved. He left his seat. “Hey, kiddo, wait up. Uh, do you have something you want signed?”
She held out a white cloth napkin, clearly brought from her own table.
“Sure thing,” Rafi said. “Anyone have a pen…?”
Bo appeared at his shoulder, holding out a sharpie. “Turn around, sweetie, we’ll use your back to write on, how’s that?”
The girl turned around, smiling shakily and looking like she might faint. Bo scribbled her name on the napkin in her usual dramatic block letters; Rafi followed suit, and shot a look over his shoulder at Carlos. He sneered and rolled his eyes again, but to Rafi’s surprise, crossed the room and added his own signature to the napkin, bigger than either of theirs and running over Rafi’s a bit.
“Thank you,” the girl whispered, on the verge of tears, “thank you so much,” and clattered down the stairs so fast Rafi kept watch on her in case she fell.
When he returned to his seat, he found Julian watching him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They had barely all settled back into their seats again when the waiter stepped in, bearing new drinks and a bright smile. “How is everything? Good?”
Carlos, who had been sneering and picking at his plate of shellfish stew, threw down his fork. “No, it’s not good! This is the most overcooked pile of dog feces I’ve ever seen on a plate!”
“You plate a lot of dog feces, do you?” Julian said, and Carlos whipped around, snarling.
“Stay out of this, pretty boy!”
“I’m so sorry to hear the dish isn’t to your liking, Mr. Reyes—”
“Not to my liking? This dish is a disgrace to my family’s restaurant! I don’t know how you can speak to me after setting this defilement in front of me and expecting me to eat it! Who hired you? Were they having a stroke at the time? Do you—”
“I’m curious, Carlos,” Julian broke in lazily, “whether you understand the basic fact that the waiter and the cook are two different people? Or are you one of those idiots who think all service personnel join a hive-mind and surrender human citizenship in exchange for their paychecks?” He gave Carlos a kindly smile. Rafi felt as
if he ought to intervene, but Julian didn’t give him time to interrupt. “I have more news for you, Carlos. Your teachers didn’t live at school, your parents have in fact had sex, and the Easter Bunny isn’t real.” He reached across the table and patted Carlos’s hand; Carlos snatched it back. “There, now that your childhood is over, you can commence to speaking to the waiter like a rational man, instead of an overtired kindergartener.”
Carlos stood up, his chair screeching behind him. Bo flinched. “I’ve had enough of you, babyface. Let’s take this outside.”
Julian laughed. “If you want to fight, have your people talk to my people. We’ll set something up. In the meantime, I have a dinner to eat. This is beautifully cooked, sir. Give my compliments to the chef,” he said to the waiter.
Carlos slammed his hands onto the table, but let the waiter scurry out of the room with his plate without further haranguing.
“It’s a shame neither of you boys is interested in the family business,” Max said cheerfully, into the ensuing silence. “I know Ted is still hoping one of his sons might show interest in being heir to what he’s built.”
As if they hadn’t had multiple family shouting matches on precisely this topic. Rafi struggled to bite his tongue.
Carlos did not. “If the old man thinks his office full of paperwork can compete with being a rockstar, I’ll leave him to his delusions.”
“Fair, fair,” Max nodded. “As long as the whole rockstar thing lasts, of course. Fame is notoriously fickle, and it's by no means certain that you’ll both have music careers this time next year.”
Carlos’s face darkened. “Well, that might be true, but it won’t be me that’s left out in the cold. Me and Bo get Distant Kingdom. That was our agreement fair and square. Rafi’s just a sore loser—he always was.”
“I always was?” Rafi knew his brother was baiting him, he knew that, but he still—“I’m sorry, which of us got thrown off the lacrosse team for having tantrums any time a scrimmage didn’t go your way?”
“Oh, of course, I forgot, you’re the perfect brother. Well, if you’re so great, you can just go make yourself your own career!”
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