“What?” I ask, thinking he burned himself or something.
“Are you boiling bacon?
“Um. Is that wrong?” I say.
“Argh! I want to punch you!” Leo says.
“Sadly, we all know you can’t,” Will says, elbowing him out of the way and using tongs to pull a piece of bacon out of the water. It definitely doesn’t look the way it does at the diner.
“Bacon, bacon,” Leo chants, like some demented, carnivorous monk.
“Why the fuck would you boil bacon?” Will asks.
“Um. I thought it would be like hot dogs?”
“Jesus Christ, you boil hot dogs. You poor thing. I take it all back. Thank god Rex found you.”
“Thank god Rex found him, why?” Rex asks, walking in the door.
“Rex,” Leo says plaintively. “I—he—and—he boiled the bacon.”
Rex looks in the pot and then looks at me and bursts out laughing.
“I didn’t know!” I say.
Rex puts his hands on my cheeks and kisses me, shaking his head.
“Why don’t you, um, pick some music for us,” he offers, running his hands through my hair fondly. To Leo, he says, “I have more bacon.”
“Oh, thank you,” Leo says worshipfully.
“Shouldn’t you be at your parents’ house,” I mutter, and walk into the living room to pick some records.
“HEY, DAD,” I say, my phone on speaker while I arrange cheese and crackers on a plate in the living room, the only food-related job Rex will give me. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Hiya, Dan,” my dad says, and I can hear the roar of football on the television in the background and my brothers yelling at the screen.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Oh, fine, fine. You know. Same as always. How’s the car?”
“It’s fine,” I say. Which isn’t entirely true. It keeps stalling out if I don’t drive it every day. Though I don’t really need a car to get from my apartment to campus and around town, it’s nice to be able to drive to Rex’s now that it’s cold.
“Hey, shithead, throw another empty beer can at that TV and I’ll throw a full one at your head!” my dad yells. Has to be at Brian, who has a habit of throwing things at the TV when sports don’t go his way. “So, you’re okay?” my dad asks me.
“Yeah, I’m good, Dad. I just wanted to wish you and the guys happy Thanksgiving.”
“Boys,” my dad calls, “your brother’s on the phone.”
There’s a long pause.
“Hey, Daniel.” It’s Sam. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Thanks, Sam. How’s everything going?”
“Fine, thanks,” he says. “Liza’s bringing a turkey over in a bit since these idiots were drunk by 10:00 a.m. and didn’t even order chicken.”
We always used to get fried chicken from this cheap place about ten blocks from my dad’s house on Thanksgiving.
“That’s nice. How’s Liza?”
“She’s fine. Good. Work’s busy.”
There’s a long pause.
“All right, kid, well, I’ll see you later,” Sam says, and hangs up.
My phone beeps with the disconnection.
“You okay?” Rex asks, sliding an arm around my chest.
“Um, yeah. I’m done,” I say, gesturing to the cheese plate.
“Okay,” Rex says, but he holds me against him for another minute and I breathe in his comforting smell.
Dinner is delicious—of course. Leo turned out to be quite the little helper and I can tell he liked feeling like he had something to do. He never says why he’s here with us instead of at his parents’ house, but I’m glad he is. At one point, he started asking everyone to tell about their best Thanksgiving ever. Rex was silent and I caught Will’s eye and all three of us started cracking up at the same time.
“What?” Leo asked, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was probably the only one of us who had a single happy Thanksgiving memory.
Will took Leo home around ten, and Rex and I exhaustedly abandoned the dishes until tomorrow, choosing to take Marilyn for a walk instead.
It’s beautiful out. Cold and sharp, but with no wind, so you can smell everything. By the light of the moon I can just see Marilyn as she trots ahead and circles back to us, joyfully peeing on trees and nipping at low-hanging branches.
Rex has his arm around my shoulders and I feel so fucking peaceful. It doesn’t hurt that I’m also full and wearing Rex’s heaviest sweater and coat.
Marilyn stops to contemplate a bush and I find myself pushed up against the strong trunk of a tree, with Rex in front of me.
“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I say.
He huffs out a laugh and kisses me, one hand pulling off my hat to tangle in my hair. Rex really likes to touch my hair. He kisses my neck and then both cheeks. Then he kind of sags against me, hugging me and the tree. He says something, but it’s so muffled by my shoulder that I can’t hear him.
“What’s that?”
“I said, I’m really glad you’re here. That we did this.” I think he means Thanksgiving dinner, but I’m not totally sure.