Page 29 of Unreasonably Yours

Toni

“I love being right,” Jac says, sounding almost wistful.

“About what?” I hang another painting, stepping back to assess if I like the placement.

Not to mention the non-zero chance the owner of that green eye would clock it as his own.

But Jac and I found a frame at the thrift store that fit it perfectly, so I couldn't resist.

“I said I doubted your art was terrible.” They gesture at the wall. “I was right.”

“Approximately how long will you be smug about it?”

They take a thoughtful sip of their cold brew. “Indeterminate.”

“I'll be putting that on my cons list for sticking around. ”

“She has jokes!” Jac teases.

A customer comes in, drawing Jac's attention, and I finish hanging the few remaining pieces.

If I were being fair to myself—and I rarely was when it came to my work—this wasn't a bad showing for only a couple of months. A curator would scoff; the collection wasn’t what most could call cohesive.

But to me, the threads connecting the works are clear in the glimpses of people I'd met here, slivers of the city popping up in color and texture.

“Be serious,” Jac returns to my side. “Are you still thinking of leaving me?”

“It's a consideration.”

They grab my hand, tilting my face toward them. “I thought we had something special.” We stare into one another's eyes, dripping with dramatic faux sincerity, until we crack, bursting into laughter.

“But you should know, this is absolutely triggering my abandonment issues,” they say.

I take a seat. “It will just give you something to talk about with your therapist.”

“Yes. I do find myself running short on trauma to work through.”

“You’re welcome.”

“When do you need to make a decision?”

I sigh. “Technically, a couple of weeks ago. But my landlord is giving me more time to decide.”

“That's surprisingly nice for a landlord.” They take the seat across from me, keeping a watchful eye on the counter.

“They're really great.”

“So that's in your pros column. What else?”

I go through a few highlights. “And the seasons actually changing is nice. I have so many sweaters waiting for their moment.”

“Huh . . . ”

“What? Not a fan of the colder months?”

“I mean, I could live without it being the dead of night before 5 pm, but I grew up in Buffalo. Cold and I are old friends.” The bell above the door jingles as someone walks in. “I'm just surprised a certain bartender hasn't made his way onto that list.”

I don’t justify that with a response and instead busy myself by packing up my hanging supplies and tossing my trash. However, the activity doesn't do much to keep me from rolling Jac's words over and over in my head.

Cillian had been putting in the work to win our little wager, that was for sure.

Even if it wasn't something he could take me to, like apple picking a couple of weeks ago or Provincetown at the end of the summer for a gloriously queer beach weekend, he'd been making sure I clocked in as many quintessential New England experiences as possible. Not to mention, since the day he steamrolled me into letting him assemble my furniture, my apartment had begun morphing from a place some animal went to ground, into a place someone actually lived. I’d even had Lucy over for a girl’s night this past weekend.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Cillian

How's the gallery coming along?

I snap a few pictures to send over.

Not too shabby.

Cillian

I can't wait to see it later. :)

Will you be around?

I was gonna go into the city and get some work done there, wanted to see the park in the fall.

Cillian

Great idea.

Still coming to mine tonight?

You've offered to feed me. So yes.

Cillian

Good.

“He's definitely on the pros list,” Jac says from behind the counter.

“You don't know who I'm texting.” I shove my phone into my jeans pocket.

“With that smile, I would bet,” they grab their tip jar, “this, that I do.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, for your information, you're also on that list.”

“I know. But I'm your caffeine dealer, so I don't count.” They set my usual on the counter.

“That just means you count more.”

As the Red Line trundles over the Longfellow Bridge, I take a picture, sending it to Cillian.

Jac’s claim that they knew who I was texting by the look on my face echoes in my memory when I realize I’m grinning at the three dots indicating Cillian was working on a response.

Fixing my face, I shove my phone deep into my bag, ignoring the vibration.

Yes, he was on the pros side of the equation. Of course he was. He’d been so kind and welcoming, sharing his city, his friends, his bed...I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts.

And, yes, we’d been spending more nights together than apart lately. But with Two Sons being so short-handed, it only made sense. My apartment was within walking distance. It was convenient. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

And the nights you go home with him? A traitorous voice in my head asks.

My stop comes up before I have a valid answer.

Instead of going to the park, I pivot in the opposite direction. The park was something Cillian shared with me and I don’t want to think about him, about us.

I don’t want to think.

Abandoning my good intentions to get some work done, I wander.

With each new block, the city unfolds in cobblestones and concrete, one thing after another demanding I pull out my sketch book.

By the time my tired feet and empty stomach are welcomed by Chinatown’s gate, I’d captured a tour guide in a tricorn hat, a cemetery with graves older than the town I grew up in, and the brutal angles of modern buildings.

Not wanting to look at my phone, I choose the first bakery that catches my eye, grab a mix of sweet and savory bites, and settle in at the pocket park in the gate’s shadow.

Most of the tables are filled with older folks playing games and carrying on lively conversations.

They pay me no mind as I let their banter wash over me, pencil lazily capturing snippets of the scene between bites.

“You’re very good,” someone says behind me. I jump a little, startled to find myself being observed by an elderly couple.

“Thank you,” I say. The woman is decked out in an almost dizzying array of patterns and colors that somehow manage to work while the man on her arm wears a sensible grey tracksuit. They give the impression of a rainbow and the cloud that brought it on.

She takes a seat across from me as the man beside her protests in a language I don’t speak. They bicker back and forth for a moment until the man tosses his hands up in defeat.

“You do what you want,” he grouses.

“I will,” she says with a smile. Clearly, this was a familiar dance between them. “You could draw us?” She asks as though she already knows the answer.

“You don’t have to—” He begins.

“She’d love to. Wouldn’t you?”

I laugh. “I’d be honored.”

The man shakes his head as he sits down, but still, he immediately takes her hand in his as if it were a habit—automatic.

We begin chatting as I start to sketch. Or, rather, Miss Lily begins chatting, leading introductions for herself and Mr. Tae before slipping into their story.

She tells me how they both immigrated from Korea, how they’d lived in Boston for almost forty years.

Lily explains how she left her abusive husband when she was 30 and how wild she was until she met Mr. Tae.

He makes sure I know she’s still wild with a smile that crinkles the lines on his face.

“He asks me to marry him every year, for twenty years,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Every year I say no. You know why?” I shake my head, the mention of proposals still enough to make my teeth grind. “Because husbands are useless. Boyfriends are better.” We all have a laugh at that.

“Why do you keep asking?” I ask Mr. Tae.

He beams at Miss Lily, “So she knows I would. If she wanted.” He turns back to me. “But being a boyfriend keeps me young.” This earns him a peck on his cheek.

I take care to capture their matching smile lines, white hair, and the shared spark of adoration in their eyes—little things that speak to lives well-loved—as they continue to tell me their story.

Using the pencils Cillian bought me, I finish with some touches of color. Partially because color is clearly important to Miss Lily, and also because I just want to keep listening to them.

Finally satisfied, I sign the bottom corner and carefully pull the page from my book.

“You made us look old!” Miss Lily exclaims.

My cheeks heat. “Oh, I didn’t mean-”

“We are old,” Mr. Tae chuckles.

“Exactly. Young people are too obsessed with being young. Age is a wonderful thing.” She turns a sparkling smile on me. “Thank you.” She says something to Mr. Tae, and he reaches for his wallet.

“Don’t you dare.”

“You can’t do work for free.”

I shake my head. “Your company was payment enough.” They narrow their eyes at me, clearly ready to argue. “If you’d like, you can tell me your best recommendations for food in the city. I just moved here not too long ago and don’t know what’s good.”

We spend ten more minutes together, Miss Lily giving me a comprehensive list of dos and don’ts of Boston’s restaurants.

They thank me again, and I watch them walk away, hand in hand. Sure, their ease together could be decades in the making, but something tells me, at some level, it’s innate. Two people who simply fit.

It’s a nice thought, the idea that someone out there could mesh with all your jagged edges. And I’ve seen people in my life find that—Belle and her late husband, my brother and his wife—I just can’t seem to envision the same for me.

I finally pull my phone out and start to walk in what I think is the direction of the stop I got off at, testing my navigation skills.

Before getting to Cillian, I tend to every other missed notification from the past few hours, even pausing at a bench to watch a random cute cat video from Belle.

He sent a heart reaction to the picture from the bridge, and a few messages.

Cillian

I really should just print this out and tape it to the office door. Something to keep me sane, lol.

We’re going up to my cabin in New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. If you’re interested in roughing it for a weekend.

‘We’ being Lu, Oli, and a few others. In case that matters.

A couple of weeks would put us just into November. Then would come December. Then Christmas…

The thought settles like a brick in my stomach.

It wasn’t just the question of where to go next that I needed to answer. I had to figure out the David of it all. Even now, almost a year out, the thought of sitting face to face with him sets me spiraling.

When David insisted we take the year apart, I initially turned him down. If Ms. Lily and Mr. Tae were pieces that simply fit, David and I were the opposite. But like kids determined to finish a puzzle, we shoved the pieces together until they broke.

So what was left?

I wasn’t sure then, and I certainly wasn’t sure now.

However, a few friends sat me down and pointed out my history of ‘cutting-and-running,’ insisting I owed David—someone who was just trying to love me—another chance at making us work.

What they didn’t say, but heavily implied, was that they had chosen their side.

I could either take his generous offer of a year to gather myself and come back or find myself mostly friendless and alone.

With friends like those . . .

The unknowns fill my mind like a goddamn swarm of cicadas. Not buzzing. Screaming.

It’s not until I find myself standing above the Charles, the sound of the train and traffic, and pedestrians breaking through the cacophony, that I realize how far I’d walked past my intended stop.

You should see it at sunset. That’s what Cillian had said about this place. He wasn’t wrong.

Above me, a watercolor sky of magenta and gold burns bright, gilding the river and the glass facades of modern buildings. Along the water, a palette of autumn shades coat the trees.

I drink it in, letting the beauty chase away everything else until I feel...grounded.

“Toni!” Oliver greets me from behind the bar at Two Sons.

I wave as I make my way over, hopping onto an open bar stool. “How do you find the energy to do this after dealing with children all day?”

He shrugs. “The tips are almost better than my salary some nights.”

“That . . . is depressing.”

“I know.” He pulls a pint, delivering it a few seats down. “Cillian’s in the office.”

I nod. “Can I grab a water, actually?”

“Of course.” He passes me a glass .

“Thanks.” I take a deep drink before asking, “So, this cabin. When Cillian says ‘roughing it,’ how rough are we talking?”

Oliver considers. “Indoor plumbing, no wifi, questionable cell service.”

“I can handle that.”

Familiar warm arms wrap around my waist. “Is that a yes to my invitation?” Cillian asks. Without meaning to, I relax into his embrace.

“Hold on.” I tilt my head to look at him. “How big is this cabin. If it’s you, me, Oliver, Lu?—”

“Oh, we camp,” Oliver clarifies.

“‘We’ better not include me,” I say.

“Do you not like camping?” Cillian asks, surprised.

“Sleeping on the ground for fun has always seemed deranged to me.” I look at Oliver. “No offense.”

“Only a little taken,” he teases.

Cillian sighs. “I knew there had to be a flaw.”

“Hey, you not drinking coffee is far more of a red flag than me preferring to sleep on an actual bed.”

“The woman isn’t wrong,” Oliver agrees. Cillian chuckles, moving to lean on the bar beside me, clearly taking weight off his bad leg.

“You ok?” I ask, taking his hand in mine.

“Yeah,” he dismisses.

I raise a disbelieving brow at that.

He kisses my knuckles. “Just sore. Promise.”

“I can cook tonight,” I offer.

“You? Cook?” he asks, shocked.

“I am capable of cooking.” Judging by his expression, he doesn’t believe me. “I am.”

“Ok, ok.” He laughs. “We can do it together. How’s that?”

“Fine.”

He gives me one of those delicious slow grins before kissing me briefly. If I weren’t seated, my knees would be liquid. “And to be clear, we can sleep in the cabin. Owners' rights.”

“Should’ve led with that.”

“So you’re coming?” He asks.

“I guess.” I sigh, rolling my eyes dramatically.

“Brat.”

“If you’d like . . .”

“Maybe later.” He kisses my cheek. “Let me finish a couple things, and then we can leave.”

“Ok.”

Cillian slips back into the office as Oliver moves over to me. “Off the record,” he begins in just above a whisper. “The trip is sort of for Cillian’s birthday.”

I don’t hide my surprise. “When is his birthday?” I realize neither of us had asked the other.

“It was the 17th.”

“As in last week?” I hiss, guilt making my cheeks burn.

“Yeah. But he’s...” Oliver trails off. “He isn’t big on celebrating it.”

“Why?”

“That’s his story to tell.” Sadness flickers in Oliver’s honey brown eyes. “But we’ve been going to the cabin in early November for a few years now, and everyone just sneaks him gifts.”

“Stealth birthday.”

“Exactly,” Oliver says, his warm smile matching mine.