Page 14

The next time Rae showed up at Tyler Street, it was with a whole crew of people and hundreds of pounds of white quartz. Spencer tried to be as out of the way as possible because the last thing he needed was to be crushed under a slab of stone. He sat on the floor of the empty living room and texted Cat. Are you coming to lunch?

He watched Cat type and retype her text endlessly. Can’t. Too much to do here.

Spencer honestly had no idea what Cat wanted out of this situation, but it was fundamentally her business. He’d done his best friend duty.

He’d worked with Rae enough times that he didn’t need to oversee the installation at all, so like usual, he was just waiting around in case disaster struck. The first time he’d seen a counter installation, Spencer had realized it was one of those situations where no matter where he put his body, it always seemed to be in the way. So now his policy was to be nowhere near the kitchen at all, and that generally worked out well for him.

A few hours of scrolling the internet later, the counters were installed virtually seamlessly, and Rae’s crew was cleaning up and packing everything away into their trucks.

“To Raj’s?”

Rae asked.

“Lead the way,”

Spencer said.

He’d walked instead of riding his bike that morning so he wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with it during their lunch. When they made it to Raj’s, they ordered and picked a table inside, out of the heat.

Rae flopped down into their chair and twisted the order number between their fingers. “It’s good to see you, man. I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch lately.”

“Hey, I know what it’s like when work gets busy.”

Rae was part of their friend group, but they’d always been much closer to Hector than anyone else, so Spencer certainly didn’t expect Rae to drop everything to see him. “How’s everything going now that you’re running the place?”

If it was possible, his question seemed to make Rae look even more exhausted. “Honestly . . .”

They exhaled heavily. “Fuck. I don’t know, Spence. I didn’t really think I’d be doing this with my life.”

“Oh.”

Spencer actually hadn’t known that. Hector and Rae had met in trade school, and once Spencer had found out that Rae’s family owned a stone yard, he’d started working with them to supply his countertops and landscaping stone. It had never occurred to him that Rae had other plans. “What did you want to be doing?”

Rae snorted. “It doesn’t matter. You know how Asian parents are.”

Spencer almost choked on his laugh. “Yeah. Yes, I do.”

In fairness, Spencer’s parents had always been pretty lenient as far as his future plans were concerned. When he had decided to move across the country to go to art school of all things, they’d been happy enough to pay for him to go. It was everything that had happened after that that had been disappointing to them.

“And it’s not all that bad. Like, not everyone gets handed a ready-made living when their parents go drive their RV around the country.”

Rae relinquished the order number and splayed their hands out flat on the table.

Spencer realized they weren’t wearing the silicone wedding band they usually did when they were working, but he figured that wasn’t any of his business if Rae wasn’t going to tell him about it. “That doesn’t mean installing countertops has to be your calling.”

“Order up.”

Raj came over to the table carrying two plates piled with sandwiches and fries. He set them down, then grabbed a chair from the table behind him and sat on it backward. “How’s it going, friends?”

“You know, just dumping all my problems on Spencer.”

Rae stuck a fry in their mouth.

“Nah, hardly. Though if you want to commiserate about Asian parents, I think Raj has me beat on that front.”

Raj and Spencer had connected on that early on in their friendship, and while neither of them had been particularly eager to go into detail, it was an experience they both understood implicitly.

Raj scoffed. “We’d need something stronger than that if you want to go down that road.”

He nodded at their iced teas.

Now that Spencer really looked, Rae seemed tired. But so did Raj. Fuck, they were all in their thirties. Maybe they were just perpetually tired now.

“We all need a fucking night out.”

Rae exhaled heavily.

“Ooh, can we go to that hot pot place?”

It wasn’t that Spencer couldn’t get hot pot with his other friends, but they always brought Cat those chopsticks for kids that were tied together with a rubber band, and then she got offended even though she absolutely couldn’t use chopsticks on her own, and he ended up needing to talk her down.

“Yes, please.”

Raj stood up and replaced his chair, then plucked the order number off their table. “I’ve got to get back there but text me. Let’s set something up.”

He headed back behind the counter, and Rae and Spencer turned their attention to their sandwiches.

On the way out, Spencer grabbed Rae’s shoulder. “Hey, if you ever need anything, hit one of us up, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks, Spence.”

Spencer watched Rae walk back toward Tyler for their truck before turning toward his apartment.