Page 5 of Gratification in Gluttony (Passing Through Cafe #2)

Chapter five

Horrible

Toni’s hangover the next day was one for the history books. Usually, he held his liquor pretty well. But the next morning, Toni spent what felt like years bent over Gem’s toilet, puking his guts out. Once there was nothing left inside his body, he managed to transfer to the living room, where he joined Gem on the floor, lying face-down beside the couch.

Willow and Zef were outside on the fire escape, soaking in the sunshine and fresh air. Oliver and Jude shared the couch, Oliver’s legs propped on the back while Jude’s arm hung over the edge, his hand dragging along the length of Toni’s spinal fin. In any other situation, that type of caress could have sent him into outer orbit, but he was too miserable to be in any way horny.

Tad had woken without a hangover at all, like it was just another day, and she sat on the kitchen counter sipping a coffee as she hummed off-key under her breath. Curled into the fetal position, mostly under the coffee table, Gem moaned pathetically, eye mask covering half his face, a cool, wet towel draped around the back of his neck.

As the only one unaffected by last night’s shenanigans—except for Tad, apparently, who was impervious to hangovers—Rusty checked on each of them periodically, fetching pain killers, water, and coffee. It would have annoyed Toni, allowing Rusty to be nice to him, but he was too miserable to put up a fight when the Pyclon slipped some pills into his hand.

“I’m never drinking again,” Toni groaned.

“Shh,” Oliver shushed him from the couch.

“You always say that,” Gem whispered, “but then you still drink. You don’t have good self-control.”

“At least I wasn’t begging to see Rusty’s nipples,” Toni slapped back, and Gem dragged down his face mask to glare at him.

“Are you implying that I…” Gem’s eyes glazed over for a moment before he grimaced. “Oh my gods, how drunk was I?”

“Drunk enough to call them cute,” Oliver muttered.

Rusty chittered uncomfortably from the kitchen, and Gem whimpered, dragging his face mask back into place. “Fuck, Toni, just kill me. Please, I can’t live knowing I called Rusty’s nipples cute.”

“None of us want to live knowing that,” Toni snapped. “And yet here we are.”

“I’m so sorry,” Gem said wetly. “It’s my greatest regret.”

“Not that this isn’t doing loads for my self-esteem,” Rusty deadpanned as he set the vomit bucket Gem and Oliver had shared within easy reach of Gem, “but maybe we could stop talking about my nipples. Forever.”

“ Nipple is a weird word,” Jude said. “Like, whoever decided that nipple should be the word to describe, you know, nipples should be embarrassed.”

“It was probably an old, mediocre man,” Tad said as she waddled over. “Had to put his stupid last name on something.”

Gem’s face—as much as Toni could see—scrunched up. “That somehow makes this conversation even more depressing.”

Light fingers stroked Toni’s fin, circling the point before gliding down the other side, and he hummed blissfully. It was soothing more than it was sexy, and he closed his eyes to enjoy it, letting his mind drift.

He must have dozed off because he roused to full awareness as Oliver and Jude stepped over his prone body. He cracked an eye open when Jude’s hand—which had already become familiar—pressed to Toni’s bare back beside his fin.

“We’re taking off,” Jude said softly, crouching down next to him. “You gonna be okay?”

“I’m fine. A-okay, baby,” he said with mock gusto.

Jude smiled tiredly, cheeks pale, eyes bloodshot. “Good to know.”

Before he could stand back up, Toni reached out and circled Jude’s ankle under his pants. “Oh, don’t forget your dick. I think Zef still has it.”

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jude chuckled, the pleasant sound tinged with embarrassment. “Right. My packer. I forgot I—” He shook his head and dropped his hand to his side. “I get really open about that when I’m drunk.”

“Why do you have to be drunk to be open about it?” Toni asked as he rubbed circles over Jude’s ankle bone.

Without looking at him, Jude worked his jaw. “Not everyone’s cool with it.”

“With you having a detachable dick?”

Barking a laugh, Jude glanced down at him. “With all of it. The whole trans thing.”

Toni wasn’t exactly sure what Jude meant by “trans,” but he assumed it had to do with his gender stuff. “Then they’re assholes, and no one cares what assholes think.”

Jude’s tired eyes softened, and the hand on Toni’s back slid up until Jude’s fingers sifted into his hair. Toni groaned when Jude scratched at his scalp.

“Thanks, Toni,” Jude murmured softly, like something just for him.

“Don’t know why you’re thanking me,” he said, flashing Jude a finger gun and grin. “I got’cha, baby. We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah. Friends.”

There was disappointment there—Toni could acknowledge that—but the sentiment made him feel warm and squishy inside. Which was stupid but also kind of wonderful.

“I’m glad you came last night. It was fun.”

“It was fun,” Jude agreed, removing his hand from Toni’s hair. “Take it easy, okay?”

Toni saluted him. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jude rose to standing, and Toni gave his ankle a squeeze before releasing him. As he made his way to the fire escape to retrieve his dick—his packer, he’d called it—Toni’s gaze clashed with Gem’s, those oil-spill irises and red pupils locked on his face.

Gem offered a sad but encouraging smile. Toni waved it off. Because it really was okay. Jude was interesting and cool, and sure, he was super hot. But Toni wanted to be his friend, even if friends was all they ever were.

Oliver and Jude’s departure began the exodus, and within an hour, Toni and Gem were the only ones left. Gem was taking a long, hot shower, and Toni had managed to swallow down some toast when his phone started to ring. Since his pants were still somewhere in Gem’s bedroom, he rose from the couch with a groan and shuffled past the room partition.

He picked through the piles of clothes on the floor until he found his pants. His phone had stopped ringing, but it started up again as he dug into the pocket. He startled at the sight of his sister’s name on the screen.

Out of all his sisters, Flo was the nicest and most accepting. She had Toni over for dinner every few weeks to update him on the family, and when she babysat Angel, their niece, she’d always let him stop in for a few hours. Their oldest sister, Bett, didn’t invite Toni around—Angel’s birthday was the only exception—but she usually looked the other way when he “coincidentally” stopped in at Flo’s to play dress-up.

But today was not Flo’s babysitting day, and he’d had dinner with her and Mak just last week. So, her call was unexpected. Apprehensively, he brought his phone to his ear. “Flo?”

“Toni,” she said, voice wet and thick, and Toni’s stomach bottomed-out.

“Flo, you okay?”

“Oh Toni, it’s horrible. Just horrible!” she wailed, nearly bursting his eardrum.

“Is it the babies?” he asked in a panic as she sobbed.

“No, the babies are fine. It’s Ma!”

Those two words knocked the breath out of him. His knees buckled, and he landed hard on the end of Gem’s bed.

“What do you mean? What happened to Ma?”

“You gotta come to the hospital! We’re all in an uproar. And Pa—ah gods, Pa is beside himself! Merciful deities, what did we ever do to deserve this?”

“Flo!” Toni barked, frustration and worry mixing into a toxic ball in his gut. “What happened to Ma?”

“Her surgery. It was supposed to be routine, you know? Why do bad things have to happen to good people?” she demanded, sniffling loudly.

“Flo, I swear on every deity that exists, if you don’t tell me exactly what—”

“I can’t say it; don’t make me say it! It’s too horrible. Just come, Toni. You need to come now. Do it for Ma!”

“Where are you?”

Flo blew her nose wetly, then blubbered out, “The hospital in Envy. Give your name at reception and they’ll send you right up. Maybe stop at the gift shop and get me a bag of crisps? The sweet and spicy ones— not the vinegar! You know the ones I like. Just hurry, Toni. Hurry!” With another mournful wail, Flo hung up, leaving Toni fighting hysteria as he jumped to his feet and scrambled for his clothes.

“Unholy shit, I could hear Flo caterwauling from the bathroom. What happened?” Gem asked as he rounded the room partition, towel secured around his waist.

“It’s Ma!” Toni cried as he tugged on his shirt, growling in frustration when his head didn’t fit. “She’s in hospital. I think she’s dying, Gem! What the fuck is wrong with this shirt?”

“Firstly, that’s the arm hole,” Gem said calmly as he finagled the shirt out of Toni’s desperate hands and fitted it right-side up over his head. “Secondly, you think your mom’s dying?”

“She is dying, Gemmy. Flo said so. Oh, I knew it. I fucking knew it.” Toni yanked his jeans up only to realize he had them on backwards when he couldn’t find the zipper. “I woke up with a bad feeling.”

“Pretty sure that’s the hangover,” Gem said as he watched Toni kick off his pants so he could turn them around.

“No, it was more than that. I knew something bad had happened. And you know, my great-great noni had the gift. She passed it on to me,” Toni said seriously.

Gem’s eyes blinked in a wave from left to right. “I mean, everyone knows clairvoyance skips two generations,” he said dryly.

“Exactly!” Buttoning his pants closed, Toni tucked his phone into his pocket and ran a hand through his messy hair. “I gotta get to Envy.”

Blocking Toni’s path, Gem placed several hands on his chest. “You gotta shower.”

“There’s no time! My mother’s probably breathing her last breath as we speak, and you expect me to shower?”

“She’s not—what did Flo say?”

“That Ma is dying!”

“She said that?”

How was Gem not understanding the magnitude of this situation?

“Yes.” Toni tried to move past the Araknis, but he was annoyingly strong.

“She said those exact words?” Gem pressed. “Like, she said, ‘Toni, get to the hospital because our mother is about to die’?”

“Yes. Well, no.” Toni pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to recall Flo’s actual words. “She said it’s horrible. Horrible, Gem!”

Gem grimaced. “Okay, not that I’m downplaying the situation, but let’s remember that the last time Flo said something was ‘horrible’”—his impersonation of Toni’s family accent would have been offensive if Toni wasn’t so worked up about his mother—“it was because her stylist had ruined her extensions.”

“Yeah, and it was horrible. She looked stupid.”

“Toni, please don’t take this the wrong way, but your family tends to catastrophize, even when an actual catastrophe is not taking place.”

“Are you likening my mother lying on her deathbed to my sister’s botched hair extensions?” Toni snarled.

“Deities give me strength,” Gem sighed. “Okay, I can see we have passed the point of rational conversation. Give me two minutes to get dressed. Go wash your face. Maybe sponge your pits a bit because—and I say this with all the love in the world—you are positively pungent right now.”

Toni took a whiff under his arms and his hungover stomach heaved. “Okay, fair point. But if my mother dies while I’m sponging off, I will make sure she blames you . And that woman holds a grudge. She will haunt you for eternity.”

“I am so confident that your mother is not going to die within the next five minutes that I’m willing to take that risk.”

Hands splayed, Toni backed out into the living room, shaking his head at his friend’s folly. “Your funeral!”

After the fastest sponge bath of Toni’s life, he was tugging on his boots as Gem appeared in fresh clothing, looking way too good to be hungover. “Okay, can we stop for a latte at the station?”

“No! It’s like you’re not taking this seriously.”

“What?” Gem said, drawing out the vowel in a high-pitched tone. “I am taking this so completely seriously.”

“I don’t believe you! Why are you even coming? Since you’re so confident that my mother ain’t dying?” Toni challenged.

Fastening his own boots on his feet, Gem snickered. “I’m coming because I’m a good friend and I want to be there for you in your time of need.” He looked away guiltily as he added, “And not because I want to play witness to the family drama that is sure to ensue.”

With a wordless growl, Toni yanked Gem’s front door open and stormed out into the hall. “You can come if you can keep up. And we are not stopping for a latte!”