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“Then I told the kid,either put on a shirt and snuff out that joint, or get out of my class. I felt so old.”

Joel basked in Daniel’s laughter, relishing that brilliant smile all the more for the fact it would soon disappear.

He had to tell him about last summer, had to tell him now, at the beginning of their second Zoom date. Soon Daniel would ask a certain polite question that would make it all spill out, and then Joel would look demented for not mentioning it before.

Besides, the pain cut deeper on the first day of classes, at the sound of “Dr. Mendel” and the thought of one who’d carried that name before him. He needed comfort tonight if he wanted to sleep.

“I can believe someone would show up stoned to a college class,” Daniel said, “but half-dressed and still smoking? That’s some serious balls.”

“Such are the joys of remote teaching. Most of my students are pretty great, though, considering what they have to deal with.”

“My daughter’s a freshman, so she still hasn’t set foot in an actual college classroom. Hailey says her first semester felt like when she was a little kid playing school.” Daniel leaned back in what looked like a high-tech ergonomic chair, revealing more of his office wall. With a trio of tracklit panoramic photo canvases showing stormy prairie landscapes, it would’ve looked at home in an art gallery. “She used to set up a little whiteboard in front of her stuffed animals, teach them spelling and math.”

“That’s adorable.”

“Hailey learned to read when she was three. One night while I was reading her a bedtime story, she grabbed the book out of my hands, told me I was too slow, then started reading it to me.”

Daniel somehow looked even more beautiful, his gaze even softer, when talking about his daughter. That black mock turtleneck that made his blue eyes pop didn’t hurt either.

“I take it she’s an English major now? Or education?”

“Visual arts and graphic design,” Daniel said.

“Chip off the old block.”

Daniel beamed at him, then raised his pint glass and took a sip. “So what are you drinking tonight and what makes it pink?”

“It’s a Floradora. Gin, raspberry liqueur, lime juice, and ginger ale.”

“I might try that if I didn’t hate gin,” Daniel said. “My stepdad used to drink it on the rocks with no mixer. Smelled like Pine-Sol.”

“Maybe you just hate bad gin.” And Fritos. That bastard had eaten Fritos when he wasn’t busy beating his stepson. “I’ll send you a list of good ones.” Joel took another sip, then licked the lime from his lips. He’d tell Daniel now.

Right now. Right…

“What kind of beer is that?” he asked instead. “Have you gone all crafty or are you still a loyal Bud drinker?”

“It’s an American pale ale, made right here in Nebraska.”

“I love a pale ale. My mom died.”

Daniel just stared at him.

Had they lost audio? Would he have to say that twenty-ton sentence again?

“Oh my God.” Daniel put a hand to his mouth, then dropped it. “Joel, I’m so sorry. When was this?”

He cleared his throat. The details. Yes, Daniel deserved the details. “Last June. She was a pulmonologist, remember.”

“Right.” Daniel’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

Joel launched into the story, the reciting of which both hurt and healed him, though never in the same measure each time. “She retired years ago. The first month of the pandemic, she looked after me, since I was sheltering because of the cancer treatment I’d just finished. Mom would leave food and stuff on the porch with a container of Clorox wipes—remember when we disinfected our groceries?—then ring the doorbell and go back to her car. We’d wave like mad at each other.” He demonstrated, practically spraining his wrist with the vigor of the gesture. “As if she was departing on a year-long cruise instead of driving twenty minutes to her own house.” He tapped his highball glass. “She taught me how to make these.”

Daniel gave a barely audible sigh. “Joel, what happened?”

“What happened was, I got stronger, and Giant started offering grocery delivery. So Mom un-retired and went back to the hospital. They were overwhelmed, and they needed her help and her leadership.” He slid the lime wedge off the rim of his glass, squeezed it, and dropped it into the cocktail. “I keep thinking, if I’d been diagnosed later, or if I’d had a longer treatment regimen, she wouldn’t have gone back to work, and she’d still be alive.”

Daniel hadn’t moved since the bomb had been dropped. “So it was Covid, then?”

“Yeah.” He reached up to fidget with his hair, a habit that had outlasted the hair itself. “I couldn’t visit her in the hospital. If not for the chemo and radiation, they might’ve let me in wearing full PPE to see her, but they knew I was…vulnerable.” That word still tasted bitter, like an unripe orange. “So, like millions of other families, my sister and nephews and I had to say goodbye to her over an iPad.”

Daniel let out a soft curse, but spoke no other words.

“The nurse said that hearing is the last sense to go,” Joel continued, keeping his voice steady with great effort, “so even though Mom had her eyes closed, she might still know we were there.”

“I’m sure she knew,” Daniel whispered. “She knew how much you loved her.”

Joel wiped his face, though it was dry. “She was kinda lucky in a way. Most people who, uh, in the hospital…they’re surrounded by strangers. She had her colleagues there, friends she’d known for years.”

His eyes began to burn. Why did the fact Mom was loved and mourned by so many make it harder instead of easier? Shouldn’t a shared burden be lighter?

He pressed a finger beneath his nose, like he did to stop an oncoming sneeze. It worked for crying, too. “The people at the hospital, it hit them hard. She wasn’t the only healthcare worker there who was lost.”

The last word came out ghostly quiet. Lost painted a fantasy, as though Mom and her colleagues had simply gone astray, wandering the hospital corridors like first-time visitors searching for the cafeteria.

Daniel cleared his throat. “I know I already said it, but I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay to say it twice.”

“I wish I could be there.”

“I wish you could too.” The wish was a thirst deep in Joel’s once-depleted bone marrow. “I haven’t even seen my sister in person. I was the only family member at the burial, and we had to sit shiva over Zoom.”

“What was that like?”

Joel took a deep breath and let it out. The worst of the telling was over. He wasn’t going to lose it, not right now.

“There were some upsides. We could designate certain hours for people to call on us rather than having them drop in whenever, like after my bubbie died back in the day. And we probably saw more friends and family than we would have in person, like the ones who live far off. But no one could hug us, or give us a shoulder to—” He pressed his lips together so hard they felt bruised. “This fucking pandemic.”

“That’s what history books should call it. It should forever be known as ‘That Fucking Pandemic.’ Otherwise people might forget.”

“People will forget no matter what we call it.” He stirred his cocktail with the straw, the bubbles racing each other to the top of the drink. “And they should. Just because some of us are sad doesn’t mean the whole world has to be that way forever.” He stabbed his straw into the lime wedge, submerging it beneath the ice cubes. “Last summer I hated all those people going to the beach like nothing had happened. But then my sister took her family to Cape Cod, and she said that trip was the brightest spot in her entire year—Ella had to quit her job to homeschool her two boys, and let’s just say she’s not a natural teacher like me. So I don’t resent people for finding joy where they can.” He gave a little laugh. “Well, sometimes I do resent them, but not on principle.”

He finally looked at Daniel, whose lighting setup was so perfect, the tenderness in his gaze showed up clear on Zoom.

“I hate that you had to deal with all that alone,” Daniel said. “If I’d known sooner, I would’ve?—”

“No, no, don’t do that. Regrets are trash. You reached out when you did, and I’m so glad you did.”

“Maybe when all this is over…”

There, that phrase everyone had been using for almost a year. When all this is over…

Joel sniffled, took a sip of Floradora, then drew himself upright. “Daniel Evans, are you asking me on a real live date?”

“Kinda feels like it on my end.”

“I always did like your end. It’s one of your top ten features.”

Daniel didn’t laugh. “You don’t have to be cheerful for me.”

“I’m being cheerful for me.” And because he couldn’t help it, because seeing Daniel made him happy at a time when happiness should not have been possible.

“So, should we make some plans?”

Joel lifted his chin to nod, then froze. Intrepid optimism like Daniel’s was contagious and dangerous.

He shook his head. “Any plans will bum me out if we have to cancel. I like to play it safe.”

“So do I.” Daniel ran a hand through his silver mane—which, though glorious, proved he hadn’t had a professional haircut in forever. “We don’t have to set a date. I just thought, I don’t know, it might be good to have something to look forward to?”

Looking forward to a mirage didn’t sound good for either of them. “I appreciate that. Right now I’m just trying to get through each day.”

“Then I’ll let you take the lead, and I won’t bring it up again. But know this, Joel.” He leaned forward in that sincere-yet-low-key way he had. “If you ever need me to spontaneously jump in my car after a two-week quarantine and a pair of negative PCR tests, just say the word and I’ll be at your doorstep in a million heartbeats.”

Joel’s own heart thawed in his chest—only a bit around the edges, but enough. Enough to fall for Daniel’s blend of die-hard romanticism and faithful adherence to public-health guidelines.

“Only a million?” Joel asked, letting his voice curl flirtatiously. “You must have a low resting heart rate, because the average is about 700,000 beats per week, which would be 1.4 million in two weeks.” He picked up a pencil and pretended to scribble numbers on his desk blotter. “Plus an extra day or two to drive, which adds at least another two hundred thousand. You’d be stoked to see me, and maybe there’d be stressful traffic if you hit Pittsburgh during rush hour, so that last day would be two hundred thousand beats all by itself. Add in a few workouts each week during your quarantine, raising your heart rate for forty-five minutes…” He set down his pencil with a flourish. “We’re looking at a cool two million heartbeats, minimum.”

Daniel smiled. “See, you already feel better just thinking about it.”

Joel looked away. For years now, feeling better had been far out of sight, and even farther out of reach.

But maybe not anymore. Maybe with Daniel, better could be not only glimpsed, but grasped, then held onto for dear life.