Landon must have noticed it when my shoulders hunched up, because his step faltered. Which is exactly when Chip looked up from his phone and caught my eye.
He looked from me to Landon, and then down at our linked hands, and then back to me.
Chip already knew I was gay—the whole team knew, since I told them at one of our team-building things when training started over the summer—but I was pretty sure Trent did not.
In fact, I was certain Trent did not, because when he saw me and Landon, he looked like Christmas had come early.
“You know those guys?” Landon asked.
“Yeah. From school. I play with the taller one.”
Chip had grown at least an inch over the summer. He was almost as tall as me now, and I had plateaued at six three over the summer.
I kind of hoped I would hit six four eventually.
“Hey, Darius.” Chip grinned at me. Cyprian Cusumano was one of those guys who always seemed to be grinning. He wore a pair of black Adidas joggers—the same kind I wore, with the white stripes down the sides and the tapered calves—and a plain white V-neck T-shirt.
“Hey, Chip.”
“Nice haircut.”
“Thanks. You too.”
Chip always had nice haircuts. He was a Level Eight Influencer at Chapel Hill High School: Whatever haircut he got, about half the guys in our class ended up doing some variation of it. Now that he was doing the Standard Soccer Team Fade, though, I wasn’t sure what everyone else would do.
“Oh. Chip, this is my—”
The thing is, Landon and I hadn’t talked about whether we were officially boyfriends. Even if it felt like we kind of were.
How did you ask a guy if you were officially boyfriends?
“This is Landon. Landon, Chip. And that’s Trent.”
Trent was hanging back, playing with his phone. He wore a crimson sweatshirt that read PROPERTY OF CHHS VARSITY FOOTBALL—he’d finally made the varsity team this year, as a something-back—and a pair of black swishy shorts.
Chip was still grinning, but he looked Landon up and down. Almost like he was judging him. “Nice to meet you.” He held out his fist.
Landon blinked for a second and then bumped his own with Chip’s.
It was the most awkward fist bump in the history of creation.
“Well,” I squeaked. I cleared my throat. “We’ve gotta catch the streetcar. See you later?”
Chip bumped fists with me too. “Yeah. See you.”
I stepped to the side so he and Trent could make it past us and tightened my grip on Landon’s hand.
“Later, Dairy Queen,” Trent said.
Great.
ZERO POINT SIX EIGHT SECONDS
Rose City Teas was in the Northwest District, a couple stops down the streetcar line from Mikaela’s salon. It was a brick building with ivy growing up one side, and a little wooden sign hanging over the door. Big windows made up one wall, with the shades half-drawn against the afternoon sun. In the corner, shelves of tea tins lined one wall, and opposite it, the tasting bar was packed with afternoon customers.
Rose City Teas was a dream come true.
Landon’s dad waved from the door to the tasting room, wiped his hands on the towel he always kept over his shoulder, and came to greet us.
He squeezed Landon’s shoulder—he and Landon had never hugged each other in front of me, which I thought was kind of weird—and then squeezed mine too.
“Hey, son. Looking sharp, Darius. How’re you doing?”
“Thanks, Mr. E. I’m okay. How about you?”
“B-plus, A-minus,” he said with a wink.
Elliott Edwards had the same gray eyes as his son. And the same auburn hair, though his thick eyebrows and well-kept beard were more brownish. And I couldn’t say for sure, but I suspected that underneath his beard he had the same excellent cheekbones as Landon too.
Landon Edwards had television cheekbones. They were angular and beautiful and always looked like he was blushing. Just a tiny bit.
“I thought you were going to Darius’s tonight?”
“I am,” Landon said.
We were still holding hands.
I really liked holding Landon’s hand.
“We were close. Thought we might as well stop by.”
“Well, perfect timing. Come try this. Polli, can you handle things?”
Polli was one of the managers at Rose City. She was an older white lady—probably about my grandmothers’ age—who always wore all black except for her scarves, which were wildly colorful, and her glasses, which were huge neon-yellow squares.
She seemed like the kind of person who should have been a judge on some kind of reality show. Or owned an antique bookshop, where she catalogued and dispensed esoteric knowledge while sipping espressos from tiny cups.
Polli waved at us and kept talking to a customer about the benefits of local honey.
Mr. Edwards led us into the tasting room, a small room partitioned from the main dining room by a frosted glass wall with the Rose City logo etched into it. The table was set with a row of gaiwans, full of damp, bright green leaves; and in front of those, tasting cups full of steaming emerald liquor.
“Here.” He handed us both ceramic spoons. I let Landon go first, dipping his spoon into each cup one by one and slurping up the tea. It was a robust, grassy green.
“Oh, wow,” I said when I tasted the third one, which had this burst of something—maybe fruity?—on the finish.
Mr. E’s eyebrows danced. “Right? Any guesses?”
“Hm.” I tasted number four, but number three was definitely the best. “Gyokuro?”
Gyokuro was a green tea from Japan, famous for being shaded for three weeks before plucking, which made it taste sweeter and smoother.
“Close. It’s Kabusecha.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like Gyokuro but with only a week of shading.”
“Oh.”
I took another slurp of number three.
“It’s awesome.”
Mr. Edwards smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Are you gonna get some?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Too pricey to be worth it.”
“Oh.”
One of the things I’d learned from interning at Rose City was, sometimes the best teas weren’t the most practical for a business.