very bad Schwarzenegger accent. Then he put on his coat and left.
* * *
Romeo returned with huge bowls of pho with steak and brisket, along with spring rolls and lemongrass chicken over rice. They laid everything out atop the bed for a gleeful if precarious picnic. “My mama would skin me alive if she knew I was eating like this,” Romeo said. Then he pitched his voice higher and waved a finger. “‘You are not acting like that in a nice hotel, Romeo Blue. Uh-uh.’”
Teddy laughed so hard he almost spilled his soup. “My mom probably wouldn’t care. My dad would worry about damage costs, though. But hell, he’d have never checked in anywhere as nice as this.” He deepened his voice for his imitation. “‘The La Cucaracha Motor Inn will be fine, son. Just ignore the meth cookers and the prostitutes.’”
“A little tight with his money, huh?”
“Oh man, like you wouldn’t believe. I love him and he’s overall a really good person. But he used to spend hours every week with the grocery ads, making a list of who had what the cheapest, and then he’d make a circuit of, like, five or six different stores to get everything. I’m fairly certain he has never paid full price for anything in his life. Plus he kept the house temps at arctic levels in the winter and in the summer refused to turn on the AC until we were all three minutes from heatstroke.” He smiled as he said this. Yes, Dad had sometimes driven him nuts when Teddy was a kid, but like Mom, he’d supported Teddy in all his childhood artistic endeavors—as long as they didn’t cost too much. When Teddy came out to his parents during his junior year of high school, they’d both hugged him long and hard and told him they loved him. They were good parents even if they didn’t fully understand him.
“Do your folks live in Chicago?” Romeo asked as he wrapped noodles around his spoon.
“Not anymore. They retired a couple of years ago and went off with my grandma to California. Mom was tired of winter. How about your family?”
“My dad died when I was twelve.”
Shit. “I’m so sorry.” Teddy wasn’t sure whether to offer a hug. It likely would have resulted in spilled food, so instead he awkwardly patted Romeo’s shoulder.
“Thanks. It was a long time ago. Mama used the insurance money to buy us a house, uh, somewhere better. He would’ve been happy about that.”
They ate for a few minutes, and when the silence grew heavy, Teddy ventured another question. “You said you have sisters?”
Romeo’s grin returned. “Four of ’em. I’m the youngest. And no, growing up with all that estrogen wasn’t painful at all.” He giggled over his obvious untruth like a naughty child, which made Teddy laugh too.
“Just the one little brother for me. He’s two years younger than me and as butch as you can possibly imagine. He’s a forklift operator in Kansas City.”
“Does he give you shit for being gay?”
“I think he was a little embarrassed by me when we were kids. But he got over it.” He’d apologized for it one Thanksgiving when Teddy was twenty-four, which had taken a lot of guts. They were too different from each other to be very close, but they got along fine.
The discussion after that turned to mild office gossip and then talk of what they’d do with their spare time if they weren’t chained to work for such long hours. They both vowed that they’d have better exercise routines. Teddy wished he could go to museums and plays. Romeo said he’d play more video games and catch up on several years’ worth of reading. He didn’t say anything about wanting to go to clubs or out on dates, which was interesting.
Eventually they returned to speculating about the next day. “What if Joyce makes us take the SATs or something?” Teddy fretted.
“She said something about you needing to walk a little, so probably not.”
“Oh, right.” Teddy tried to imagine an IQ test that involved physical movement, but couldn’t picture it. He was going to have to go into the second test as blindly as the first. “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re gonna ace whatever she gives us.”
Romeo paused with the last spring roll in midair. “What makes you think that?”
“You’re super smart.” Duh.
Romeo ducked his head, but not quickly enough to hide a broad, shy smile. Then he