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Tommy heads toward the parking lot, steps light after a surprisingly slow shift during which he’d actually caught up on both sleep and overdue maintenance. He’s debating what to do with the unplanned evening ahead when a figure, silhouetted by the setting sun and leaning against his car, sends his inner monologue screeching to a halting stutter of static.
“Evan, hey,” he says, recovering quickly because he’s nothing if not level in an emergency. “What brings you here…now?”
Evan holds up his phone, where a text thread is open on the screen. “My lady on the inside told me this would be a good time to catch you. Q-word day, nice weather, nothing running overtime.”
“Who—oh, Donato, right? I always forget you guys know each other.” It’s a lie, and he’s pretty sure Evan knows it’s a lie, but it’s something to say.
“Ha, yeah, you know, once a 118…” he trails off as he muses, wrinkling his nose for a moment. “Anyway, got a sec?”
Tommy shrugs expansively. “Apparently. What’s up?”
Evan picks up a large brown paper shopping bag off the ground and passes it to him. “This is for you.”
Tommy glances down. “Thank you, for…what?”
He beams. “That’s what figuring myself out looks like.”
“Cookies…and a scarf?”
“It’s hand-wash only,” Evan says, wagging a warning finger in Tommy’s face. “Learning duplicate stitch for those little helicopters was a beast.”
He can’t parse half of what Evan’s saying, but that’s not new. “Wait, you made this?”
“The cookies, too,” he beams. “Carol—she’s in my stitch-and-bitch group, she taught me how to do the details—she said the real coming out in my thirties was as a stealth grandma.”
“That’s…a series of words I’m not sure I’ve ever heard in that order before.” He fidgets with the handles on the bag; it’s good they’re reinforced.
Evan chuckles. “I’d sure as hell hope not, it’s been pretty surprising for me, too. But good, even if I can’t do a backflip anymore.”
Tommy isn’t sure how he keeps forgetting the expressions that some of the sentences that come out of Evan’s mouth put on his face, but surely this is too many nominally innocuous revelations for one conversation. “Ooookay, so, figuring yourself out is…knitting and baking? And, I guess, no gymnastics?”
“Yep,” he replies without hesitation. “You were right about some stuff—I did need to work on me, start building a life that looks like how I want it, not around other people’s ideas of what’s right.”
Tommy tilts his head. “I said that?” He’s never heard such apt advice that sounds less like something he’d actually say out loud, let alone to Evan Buckley about anyone in his life.
“Well, kind of—I’ve been, um, thinking about that conversation when we broke up…well, pretty much since it happened. You said I was still figuring myself out, and you were right about that. So: I bake now, I learned to knit, I’m working on making friends that I don’t work with or their immediate families.”
Where is this going? “That’s, uh, that’s great for you, sounds like.”
“I moved again, too—still renting, but the place is really mine this time. No ghosts, not even metaphorically.”
“…sure.” Tommy thinks fleetingly of kitchens he can’t set foot back in and wonders whether Evan’s been haunted by the same residual what-ifs, or if he’s just recalling the boils.
“And I started dating again some.”
That Tommy’s throat suddenly tightens around nothing doesn’t come as a surprise. “Oh? How’s, uh, how’s that working out?”
“All right, mostly. I mean, I’m definitely bi, that was not something that needed more figuring out, but. No one serious, not remotely.”
He really can’t take wherever this is headed, but Evan is both blocking his car door and evidently aware he does not have anywhere else to be. “Evan, why—why are you telling me this? What’s with the party favors? I thought—well, I thought a lot of things, but mainly that we’d just…missed our window at this point. And it seems like you’ve moved on, which is fine, really, it’s just—I—”
Evan sets his hands on Tommy’s shoulders, steadying. “I wanted to tell you, you were right about some stuff that night. But you were really wrong about some other stuff, too, including that window. I’m sorry it took me so long to say that.”
The dry tightness in Tommy’s throat drops to his suddenly roiling stomach. He can’t look away from Evan, he never could, but he can’t look right at him, either. Evan drops his hands but ducks his head to catch Tommy’s gaze.
“Look, I…I wanted you to be wrong about all of it. So, so bad. And I spent all this time so scared you were right that I just never knew what to say. And I did have some figuring out to do, especially after Bobby, and finding my own place, and—yeah. It’s been a hell of a year.”
His eyes were still so blue, and so focused on Tommy. Tommy’s never sure how much he wants to be seen, but Evan has always left him with little choice. “Sounds, uh, sounds it.”
“So, one thing I figured out is—it takes a while to knit a scarf. It’s a lot of intention. Paying attention. Fixing mistakes, even if they’re a while back, or figuring out how to live with them as part of the pattern. Checking measurements, like, constantly, because even if things look good it doesn’t mean they’re right. Turns out, that’s desserts, too. Yarn can’t sense fear, but I’m pretty sure puff pastry can.”
For lack of a better response, Tommy sets down the bag and pulls out the scarf. It’s beautiful, if not terribly practical for LA—dark navy wool with a silky finish, half a foot of fringe on either end, little red and yellow helicopters embroidered along the edges. The yarn may be able to sense his fear, though; he can see some little wispy fuzz shaking soundlessly in the remaining daylight. Tommy stares at the gift for a long moment, trying to will himself into thinking of flying more than falling.
Evan waits, unexpectedly patient even as he’s rocking back and forth on his heels. Tommy finally looks back at him. “Thank you, Evan, it’s—I’ve never gotten anything like this.”
“A good first for you, then,” he smiles, though it’s not at all smug. Just so, so hopeful. “That, uh, that brings me back to what you were wrong about. Because—because, yeah, I did have a lot of things to figure out, I still do. But you—you were never one of them.”
“Evan—” Tommy’s voice sounds weirdly high-pitched to his own ears.
“No, just—just, please, let me finish, before you run away again. Being with you was the realest relationship I’ve ever had, and trying to find someone else just makes me miss you. Want you. I do have feelings for you, just to be clear. I didn’t need to figure that out. I kinda couldn’t ever stop thinking about you, and—believe me, I know how long it’s been. Not because you were my first guy, or a guy, okay? You’re the exception because you’re you. And I had about 650 yards of worsted merino to think about not being impulsive when I tell you that.”
“How, ah, how long did that take?”
“Uh, like a month for the scarf itself. The colorwork was, like, an entire 48,” Evan admits. “I think it came out pretty good, though, or at least you can tell what I was going for, right?” Tommy’s not sure if they’re still talking about the knitting.
“No, of course, it’s great, really. I can’t believe you spent that kind of time on—well, me. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah…yeah, I know. But I thought—I wanted to show up for you, and mean it, and have it last.”
Any air in Tommy’s lungs punches out of him with a swift, “Evan.” It’s more than he’d ever expected, the optimism on offer so fragile in the face of Tommy’s own perennial cynicism.
“I know you thought you couldn’t be my last, and that anything after that lab was just—was just not—but, Tommy, if we missed our window, we can open another one. You—you were wrong that you couldn’t be my last. You are wrong. I think you still could be. I could be yours—if you wanted.”
He’s heard this before, and he does want, god, does he still want. But there’s really only one way toward it, and it’s not the easy option. Then again, Tommy’s survived the whole exchange so far, and that’s not nothing. “I could be open to…being wrong. Though I might need about a month plus a 48 to start to work through it, too.”
“Yeah, that’s fair.” Evan hefts a second bag off the ground that Tommy hadn’t noticed. “Think about it, maybe? I promised to deliver some thank-you baked goods.” He claps Tommy on the shoulder again and struts toward the station, the bag swinging just enough for Tommy to catch the initials “LD” scrawled on the side.
“I, uh, I will,” Tommy says faintly. “Thanks again.”
Evan turns around to face him, walking backward. “And look, if you never wanna hear from me again, I get it, okay? Consider this a thank you, and, you know, stay warm. But if you do want to talk again sometime…let me know what you think about the cookie recipe. I think I might’ve finally cracked it this time.” His spins on his toe just before letting himself into the hangar.
Tommy returns the scarf to his bag and puts the whole thing on the passenger seat while he stares out the front windshield at the entrance Evan had just disappeared through. In lieu of turning on the car, he fishes a cookie out of the plastic-wrapped platter and takes a bite.
It’s a spin on the classic chocolate chip cookie, sprinkled with sea salt and perfectly poised between chewy and crispy. He discovers the mocha chunks as he chews, the flavors sweet and strong and lingering. It’s suddenly hard to believe how much of his life has been spent without it. Oh, damn, Tommy realizes through the haze of the setting sun and their conversation. He’s right, this is it.
Tommy takes another bite, and another, toying with the scarf’s soft fringe as he lowers his window and waits for the door to reopen.