by Kris Ripper
“Then we should do something low-key, right? They’re not having a bachelorette party?”
“We’re doing a sleepover tomorrow night. Ronnie said she’s too old for a bachelorette party.”
“Aww. That sounds nice.”
“Yeah.” Sidney’s hair was light brown, nearly blond at the ends. I finger-combed it out over their pillow. “So um...sex again? Unless you’re unwilling to have sex with someone who’s seriously spent the last nine years using the phrase ‘V-Day’ like a dope.”
“You are not a dope.” They shifted, sliding down until our faces were on the same level. “I totally planned on more sex, but we don’t have to. Cuddling is also nice.”
“I think we have enough time for both.”
They smiled. “Me too.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ronnie and Mia lived in a legit house. It was a small house, and the neighborhood wasn’t high-end or anything, but it was cute, and it was an actual house, and they even had a guest room.
Not that any of us were using the guest room.
Oscar brought his own air mattress (it made him feel better to have control over his sleeping arrangements, and it had gotten to the point where I felt better just seeing his familiar nest whenever we stayed somewhere). Mase and I were on couches—or would be, later.
We’d descended on the house shortly after work, dropping our stuff in a pile by the door, taking off our shoes, and taking over the kitchen. Mia hadn’t gotten home from a meeting at the store and since Ronnie hated to cook, I was in charge.
I started taking stuff out of bags and waited for them to figure out what we were doing.
“Salad!” Ronnie called. “No, there’s cheese.”
“You can put cheese on salad,” Oscar said, sounding unimpressed with what he saw so far.
“Not mozzarella,” she shot back. “Oooh, sun dried tomatoes, yum.”
Mason poked at one of the remaining bags before I could stop him. “Cauliflower rice. Huh.”
“Cauliflower rice,” Oscar repeated. “Are we fucking hipsters now?”
Ronnie gasped. “How dare you! I’ll never forgive hipsters for adopting TERF bangs and screwing up my ability to effectively pre-judge people.”
“Amen, sister.” Mason shook his head. “I’m not getting this. Omelets with cauliflower? What are the eggs for? Some kind of scramble?”
I filed that away because cauliflower rice would probably make for a delicious scramble. “We...are making...”
Longggggggg pause. Until Mason hit me.
“...pizza.”
They gaped.
Ronnie sorted through the ingredients again. “What, like, deconstructed pizza? Since when did we put cauliflower in any form on pizza?”
“No.” Oscar set his expression on disgruntled. “Not doing it. You can shove your vegan-ass, gluten-free-range bullshit right up your—”
“Oh yum!” Mase said. “Cauliflower crust. Someone was just talking about that.”
“It’s obviously not vegan,” Ronnie told Oscar. “There’s mozzarella. And eggs.”
He shook his head. “Don’t care. Not eating pizza made out of vegetables.”
“Honey, you love veggie pizza.”
He continued to shake his head.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Ronnie. “I’ll win him over. I made this the other night and it was delicious.”
“Ooooh, for Sidney?” She kind of sang their name.
“Shut up, no, for myself.” Sure, okay, I’d thought of it as “testing” the recipe for when I could make it for Sidney, but whatever.
“Awww.” Mase pinched my cheek. “Blushy McBlusherson over here has an enbyfriend.”
“Oh my god, shut up, don’t call them that. Unless they like it, which I don’t know, because it hasn’t come up.”
He whipped out his phone. “Maybe we should—”
I dove for it, he pulled it away, we tussled, I tried to corner him and get his phone but he dodged and ran right into Mia just coming in the door. Mason slipped behind her, shouting, “Block him!”
Mia’s withering glare landed on me. “Explain.”
“Um...”
“Don’t mind them, love.” Ronnie saved me by taking Mia’s purse and jacket. “Mason’s just torturing Dec about Sidney.”
The glare disappeared. “Oh. Well, that’s okay, then.” She kissed her fiancée hello. “I thought it was something bad.”
“It is something bad!” I ducked between them and managed to get to Mase, but only after he held his phone up in triumph.
“Ha ha! Message sent!”
I groaned and converted my tackle into banging my head on his shoulder. “You’re a monster.”
“I just have a question. Sidney doesn’t mind questions. Also, look at you not even challenging the premise.”
“What premise?” I whined, still banging. Banging my head on Mase’s shoulder was much more satisfying than banging it on my steering wheel.
“The premise that you two are doing a thing that could actually use a word.”
“It’s great,” Mia said from behind me.
“I agree,” Ronnie added.
Oscar made a strangled sound. “I find the whole thing offensive and I’m viciously jealous.”
“Aww.” Mase hugged me. “He says the sweetest things.” His phone dinged. “Hey, I wonder if that’s—”
My phone dinged. I groaned. “What have you done.”
“Sidney said they don’t identify as enby, so probably not,” Mason reported.
I looked at my phone. Squinted at it. With one eye completely closed.
We haven’t discussed titles, but we could if you want. Maybe “datemate”? It’s not great, but it’s...something.
“They think maybe ‘datemate’,” I said slowly, typing, Or we could just use each other’s names. We don’t NEED titles.
My friends started discussing titles and pet names in the background as we all shifted back into the kitchen proper.
I will give it more thought. It feels...slightly appealing to me to use titles. But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Ack. That wasn’t what I meant at all. I furiously typed out another reply voicing my support for titles unless they didn’t want them.
“I love ‘bae,’” Ronnie was saying, “but at this point I think maybe white people should stop appropriating black culture. You know, as an experiment.”
Mase laughed. “Hey, at least white folks aren’t starting a billion dollar industry off ‘bae.’ But yeah. ‘Partner’ is good, but not casual. Do people use ‘significant other’?”
“I tried,” Mia said. “But it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.” She sidled closer to Ronnie. “I like ‘lover’ myself.”
Oscar made gagging noises.
My phone dinged.
I’ve talked about this on the show, but it was always general. I’m weirdly unprepared to think about it personally. I think...for something serious... I’d dig the term “companion,” like “long-term companion.” Sort of reclaiming something once used to diminish queer relationships. But “datemate” or “datefriend” or just “date” would probably make the most sense right now.
Oh wow. “Companion.” Um. The word shot glitter-sparks all down my spine. I bit my tongue. I agree. Variations on “date” for now (for both of us, please). “Companion” as a more, uh, settled thing. If relevant. Um. So. Yeah.
Mase poked me. “What’d they say?”
“We’re using ‘date’ or ‘datefriend’ or ‘datemate.’ Right now. While things are...casual.”
He pretended to swoon. “Your date, Sidney. God, that’s adorable. Sidney’s date. Awww.”
Ronnie and Mia added their awwws to the chorus.
I would have told all of them to shut up again but my
phone dinged.
It’s a pleasure to be your datefriend, Declan.
I way-more-than-pretend-swooned. “I, um, really like them,” I said to my friends, and sent back, I am at your service, my date. Which was probably too much, but I...really, really liked them.
“Are they good at fucking, though?” Oscar said. “Because that’s important.”
Mase held up both hands. “That is private and we’re leaving Dec to it.”
Another round of awwws from the brides-to-be. Ronnie reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “That is super sweet.”
“I don’t know about that—”
“No, it really is,” Mason agreed. “But now the sweet part is over, get in there and make us dinner.”
I hid in the bathroom just long enough to text Sidney to tell them I’d made our sex life off-limits to spectators and I wasn’t sure why but it felt right. Plus a blushing emoji.
They sent back, That feels right to me too. Plus a blushing emoji.
Then I went and made dinner.
Everyone loved cauliflower crust pizza. Even Oscar.
* * *
The theme of the sleepover was “terrible wedding movies.” Our Family Wedding was the kind of terrible that you couldn’t stop watching, even as you were cringing at the “It’s okay I’m making a racist joke because I, too, am a person of color” punchlines. And also counted as rehearsal because that was so gonna be Mia’s dad in a week, making alllll the jokes and being like, “Look, I’m Korean, it’s okay.” We totally loved Mia’s dad, but wrangling him in company was going to be a whole thing.
Our second movie was 27 Dresses, which was a massive waste of Katherine Heigl, who everyone in the room except Oscar would so bang. Or like...have coffee with. Because she seemed awesome. And third wedding movie was actually breaking the theme, because The Perfect Wedding was a cute feel-good gay-boys-in-love story that had all of us awwwing by the end of it.
We took a break for dessert, which was chocolate fondue in white, milk, and peanut butter varieties, with a bunch of stuff to dip in it. Oscar and I had collaborated on the chocolates and Mase had brought the dipping stuff.
“You guys are the best,” Ronnie said happily, feeding Mia a white-chocolate-covered strawberry.
“We really are.” Mason made a big show of dipping a marshmallow, swirling it around somehow lasciviously. “Dec, should I cram this in your face like the two lovebirds?”
I stuck out my tongue at him. “Not unless you want me to bite your fingers.”
“Ooh la la, he plays mean. I’m into it!”
Oscar dipped three pretzel sticks, one in each chocolate, then ate them all at once. “White chocolate and peanut butter don’t really go together,” he concluded.
Mia leaned toward Ronnie and whispered, “I’m trying to make that into a race thing but I can’t make it work.”
“You can be my peanut butter anytime, baby,” Ronnie whispered back.
I booed. “Quit it, you’ll make me sick before the chocolate does.”
The fiancées exchanged suspicious glances. “So, um.” Ronnie frowned.
“Yeah, we...” Mia refilled her wine glass. “We just wanted you guys to know you mean the world to us.”
“Oh god.” Oscar appealed to Mase and I. “They’re about to get fucking sappy. Make it stop.”
“Don’t make me muzzle you,” Mase said. Then, to the ladies, “Go ahead, lovebirds.”
“We’ve been thinking a lot, you know, with all the stuff about my sister, and whether my parents will even show up, and how awful they’ll be if they do, and...” Ronnie wiped her eyes. “And anyway, it’s really important to me that all four of you know that you’re my family, and I appreciate it so much. And I’m so, so glad that I happened to luck into having you as a roommate freshman year, Oscar.”
“Oh Jesus fucking Christ, come here.” Oscar sighed heavily and gave Ronnie a huge hug. “Like you could ever get rid of me. You’ve been stuck with me since that day you called in sick to Latin when I was super hungover and nursed me back to health.”
I nudged Mason. “Hey, remember that day I was super hungover and you stood beside my bed and taunted me with burritos that made me want to puke? That was real sweet too, Mase.”
“I’m pretty much the best.”
We grinned at each other.
Mia, now also teary, sniffed. “Also we thought this would be a good time to say you guys are collectively in charge of my parents, so make sure they don’t do anything embarrassing.”
Mase shook his head. “I can’t tell your dad to stop cracking Korean jokes. He loves making people uncomfortable.”
“I asked Mom to medicate him or something, but she refused.”
“It’d be such a good wedding gift, though!” I said. I guess it violated some kind of medical oath or something for her mom to lightly sedate him in time for the ceremony. Plus, probably whatever her dad ended up doing would make for funny stories. Later. Way later.
“Is the sappy shit over yet?” Oscar asked. “I want more chocolate. Maybe with a spoon.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Germs. We cannot all get sick right before the wedding.”
Ronnie shoved Oscar as he was going for the chocolate. “Did you hear what Declan just said? We are not getting sick before my wedding, mister.”
Mason tilted his head to lean against mine. “Wasn’t it nice a minute ago when they were all cute and remembering their beautiful friendship?”
I laughed. “Yeah, thank god that’s over. What’re we watching next?”
We stayed up past midnight, despite all of us bitching that we were way too old to stay up that late. When we’d lived in the dorms I thought sleepovers couldn’t get better than sleeping bags and a twenty-four pack of whatever beer we could afford. I’m really happy I was wrong. Adulthood sleepovers rock.
Chapter Eighteen
Since our Saturday date was a decoy date, it felt like the pressure was off. I put together a good salad for lunch and Sidney came over a while after they got off work. I’d already been watching a documentary, so I caught them up a little on Viking travels and we settled in.
The Jenkinses had been back briefly, then gone away again. I didn’t know that much about my landlords except that they were married (or at least used the same name), they traveled a lot, and they loved their dog. Toby’s an Australian shepherd. That’s all I know about his pedigree. He’s also a total cuddle monster, and he really does need company. He’s sad when I leave for work in the morning and I always turn on Animal Planet as per my instructions.
I vaguely had the impression that Mrs. Jenkins was an expert in...something medical? And that Mr. Jenkins did...computer-based work?
And they were really nice to me. When they assured me I could use the downstairs of the main house, they meant it. They had a cleaner come once a week whether they were there or not.
We took Toby for a walk after lunch. It was...weirdly normal-seeming to have Sidney there for regular things like feeding the dog and taking him for his walk. I kept thinking I wasn’t being a very good host, but it just...didn’t feel strange to have them in my space. (Or to pick up dog poop with a plastic bag while they stood by, continuing to talk about an archaeology podcast they’d recently heard, which we’d started discussing when watching the Viking show and kept going back to.)
I showed them my little apartment in the backyard after we got back from our walk. Which...took some time. I gave a very thorough tour. Of my tiny room. And, uh, my bed. And also there was the shower.
When we were dressed and available for dog company again, I made a pot of decaf in the main house (because Sidney still had to go home and go to bed at a decent hour so they could get up at three in the morning for work). We ended up on the couch with our legs pleasantly tangled, and Toby snoring contentedly at our feet.
“I’ve been t
hinking about The Love Study,” Sidney said.
“Okay.”
“I think we might consider ending it. Officially.”
I blinked. “Oh. Wow, I hadn’t even thought about that. But what about your sponsor?”
They did one of their understanding nods. “I considered that. The money has been nice, for sure. Or being able to count on it has been nice. But I think...the show has done what we designed it to do. A microcosm of the dating world, an example of a few potential outcomes.” Their thumb rubbed rhythmically up and down the side of the mug. “And selfishly I kind of want us dating to be for us. Not for the channel. Not for the money, or the views, or the shares, though all those things have been nice. But this, you, being with you is...more important.”
I swallowed. “It’s really important to me too. Like, usually I tell my friends everything, but this feels...specialer. More special. You know what I mean.”
Their eyes met mine and I knew they were going to kiss me in the moment before they did, had that anticipatory thrill right before their lips touched mine and I closed my eyes, needing something from it, maybe an acknowledgment that this was special for them too.
“I really, really enjoy you,” they murmured. We kissed for another minute before they pulled away, but not far. “Um. Do you think we should end the show?”
Part of me was relieved by the idea. Part of me was almost sad. I’d gotten used to talking to that faceless audience, to putting my thoughts in order so other people could understand them, which kind of helped me put them in order for myself. “Not gonna lie, I’ll probably miss it a little.”
“Oh, no, I don’t want to end it just for me. If you want to keep going on dates with other people and coming on—”
I kissed them. “Please don’t make me keep going on dates with other people.”
“I don’t really have an exclusivity thing. But I don’t intend to date other people than you right now.”