“Crazy? I’m acting crazy?” Lua’s eyes grew wide and he launched himself at Jaime, even though Lua was six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, and beat Jaime’s chest with his fists. “You fucked Birdie Johnson!”
I entered the fray to pull Lua off Jaime. Lua struggled—he was deceptively strong—and I strained to keep him from busting free and attacking Jaime again.
“You broke up with me!” Jaime said. He shook the fight out of his arms and headed for the door. “I’m outta here.”
I let Lua go as soon as I thought it safe, but he looked around the room, grabbed a wooden jewelry box off his dresser, and chased after Jaime. I followed. Jaime was already in his car, backing out of the driveway, and Lua shouted, “Don’t forget this, asshole!” and lobbed the jewelry box at his windshield. The box fell short, smashing into the hood of Jaime’s Jetta, spilling rings and bracelets and coins. Jaime didn’t stop.
We stood outside until Jaime was gone. Then I said, “Wanna tell me what that was about?”
Lua folded his arms over his chest. “Just a minor disagreement.”
“A minor disagreement, huh?” I draped my arm over Lua’s shoulders. “I guess you’re not going to prom together, then.”
“With any luck, Jaime won’t make it to prom with his dick still attached to his body.”
“My mom recently sharpened all the knives in our house, if you need them.”
“What?” Lua said.
“Nothing.” I felt like I should do or say something, but I wasn’t certain how to help Lua. After a minute, I said, “Wanna get coffee?”
“Sure.”
I drove us to Prufrock’s, a fairly new, trendy coffee bar in Calypso, the next town over. Despite the self-important artist crowd that usually frequented the place, I enjoyed its cozy atmosphere. I wasn’t sure it’d survive a year, but I hoped it would. Worn and comfy chairs and couches were arranged haphazardly—nestled in dark corners for those who desired privacy, set up in circles for those who wanted to socialize and hoped to be seen—and the dark wood counters and industrial light fixtures gave the café a moody, dissociative vibe. Even the holiday decorations—mistletoe crafted from metal and gears, a mix of black and silver stockings, and green garland—were muted to match the atmosphere. Capping off the indie ambiance were a few paintings hanging from the walls, some of them pretty good. I was especially drawn to one depicting two boys with raven wings flying into outer space.
Lua claimed a couch in the back while I stood in line to order our drinks.
The cute guy behind the counter laughed and smiled as he spoke to each customer like they were the most important person in the world. His name tag read DIEGO. When it was my turn, I ordered myself a mocha, and Lua a frozen mocha.
“Can you make the frozen decaf?” I asked. “But don’t write it on the cup.”
Diego raised his eyebrow. “We consider secretly withholding caffeine a capital offense around here.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Lua. He was stabbing his phone screen with his finger, either composing a profanity-laced rant to Jaime that I’d need to intercept before he sent it, or deleting every picture of them together. Possibly both.
“My friend’s already a little overstimulated. Any more caffeine and he may rack up a body count.”
“Got it.” Diego winked at me, which made me blush, and prepared our drinks himself.
Lua was still torturing his phone when I returned, carrying our coffees. I settled in, leaning against the arm of the couch, and pulled my legs underneath me.
“I don’t understand how you can drink cold coffee,” I said.
“It’s frozen, not cold.” Lua tossed his phone down and focused on his drink. “And it’s, like, eighty degrees outside. It hardly feels like Christmas.”
My drink tasted more like hot chocolate than coffee; I’d really only ordered it for the delicious whipped cream. “So,” I said. “You want to talk about Jaime?”
“No.”
“Right.”
Lua didn’t handle his emotions well. He bottled them up, pushed them down, until the pressure grew too great and they erupted in a geyser of profanity and violence. Lua and Jaime had dated on and off since freshman year and had spent more than half of their relationship engaged in screaming matches, usually instigated by Lua. I’d never cared for Jaime—he’d hardly made the effort to get to know me or Dustin or Tommy—but he treated Lua well for the most part and genuinely loved him. Jaime had stood by Lua when he’d begun questioning his gender, and Jaime had even punched one of his friends so hard he’d knocked out one of the guy’s teeth because the guy had made a rude comment about Lua. But two people can love each other and still not belong together, even if neither of them wanted to admit it.
“My mom’s dating a guy from her office,” I said.
Lua froze with the straw still in his mouth, then slowly lowered the cup. “What? Seriously? Go, Kat.”
“It’s weird. He’s twenty-four.”
“Would it be weird if your dad were hooking up with some younger woman?” Lua asked, and then didn’t wait for my answer. “Don’t be that guy, Ozzie.”
I hadn’t expected Lua to take my mom’s side. “Logically, yeah, I get it. But she’s my mom. And the guy is, like, Warren’s age.”
Lua shrugged and made me feel like I’d overreacted about the whole thing, which I probably had. “Speaking of Renny. He still planning to run around the globe and murder innocent people under the dubious banner of democracy?”
“He ships out January second.”
Lua slurped her “coffee.” “That soon?”
“Yeah.” Christmas was only a week away—though it certainly didn’t feel that way at my house—and New Year’s would arrive shortly after. Then Renny would disappear. Even if he returned, he wouldn’t be the same person who left. I wondered if everyone would forget him as completely as they’d forgotten Tommy. “I just can’t picture him taking orders from some bull-necked drill sergeant and—”
“He said it was my fault we broke up,” Lua said, cutting me off. “That I spent too much time with the band.”
I tried to balance my coffee on the side of my shoe. “We’re talking about Jaime now, right?”
Lua flashed me a “duh” face. “I mean, the band’s on the verge of something huge, Ozzie. Poe scored us time at her uncle’s studio so we can record a demo. And a record label scout e-mailed me last week. He watched a video online of one of our shows and wants to see us play live.” He squeezed his hands into fists. “This could be it—everything I’ve ever wanted—and Jaime’s acting like a needy little bitch.”
“He is your boyfriend, Lu.”
“Was.”
“Fine,” I said. “Was. And you broke up with him, remember?”
Lua pulled the lid off his drink and used his straw to scoop out the chocolate-drizzled whipped cream. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think he’d stick his pickle dick in Birdie Johnson.”
“Let me get this straight: You don’t want him, but you don’t want him to date anyone else?” I frowned, doing my best impression of my mother’s dreaded face-of-disapproval. “How’s that fair?”