taxes, and Wes is laughing—eyes closed, head thrown back, nose scrunched up laughing. August knows she’s staring. She’s never, not once since she moved in, seen Wes crack more than a sarcastic chuckle.
“You good back there?” Isaiah asks, glancing in the rearview mirror. August whips her phone out, pretending she’s not monitoring their conversation. “You got enough legroom?”
“I’ll survive,” August says. “Thanks again. You saved my life.”
“No problem,” he says. “It’s not as bad as when I did this for Wes. His bed’s a queen. That was a bitch to move.”
“You helped Wes move a bed?”
“I—” Wes starts.
“It’s very tasteful,” Isaiah continues. “Birch headboard, matches his dresser. He may not be a rich kid anymore, but he still got bougie taste.”
“That’s not—”
“You’ve seen the inside of Wes’s bedroom?” August interrupts. “I haven’t even seen the inside of Wes’s bedroom, and I share a wall with him.”
“Yeah, it’s cute! You expect it to look like a hobbit hole, but it’s really nice.”
“A hobbit hole?” Wes hisses. He’s aiming for indignant, but his mouth splits into a begrudging smile.
Oh, man. He is in love.
August’s phone chimes. Jane, telling her to put on the radio again.
“Hey,” she says. “Do you mind if we put the radio on?”
“God, please,” Isaiah says, pulling the AUX cord out of Wes’s phone. “If I have to listen to Bon Iver for another block, I’m gonna drive into a telephone pole.”
Wes grumbles but doesn’t protest when August reaches forward, tuning to 90.9. The song that comes on is one she recognizes—gentle piano, a little theatrical.
“Love of My Life” by Queen.
Oh, no.
There was, she realizes, a major flaw in her plan. She may not be kissing Jane anymore, but this is worse. How is she supposed to know if, when Jane requests “I’ve Got Love On My Mind,” August is supposed to read into the lyrics? Dear Natalie Cole, when you sang the line When you touch me I can’t resist, and you’ve touched me a thousand times, were you thinking about a confused queer with a terrible crush? Dear Freddie Mercury, when you wrote “Love of My Life,” did you mean for it to reach across space and time in a platonic way or a real-deal, break-your-heart, throw-you-up-against-a-wall type of way?
“You sure you got enough room?” Isaiah asks. “You kind of look like you’re dying.”
“I’m fine,” August croaks, sliding her phone back into her pocket. If she absolutely has to have feelings, she can at least do it in private.
They unload Isaiah’s car and carry everything up six flights and into August’s bedroom, and Isaiah blows them both a kiss on his way out. Wes sits next to August on her deflating air mattress, each wiggling their asses to force the air out.
“So…” August says.
“Don’t.”
“I’m just … curious. I don’t get it. You like him. He likes you.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is it, though? Like, my crush lives on the subway. You have it so much easier.”
Wes grunts, abruptly getting to his feet, and the sudden lack of counterbalance sends August’s ass thumping onto the floor.
“I’d disappoint him,” he says, maintaining stubborn eye contact as he dusts his jeans off. “He doesn’t deserve to be disappointed.”
Wes leaves her on the floor. She guesses she kind of deserved that.
Later, when she’s managed to assemble the cheap bedframe she ordered and tuck the sheets onto her new bed, she opens her texts.
What’s the story behind the song?
Jane texts back a minute later. She addresses and signs it the way she usually does. August is so used to it that her eyes have started skipping right over the introduction and sign off.
I don’t remember much. I listened to it in an apartment I had when I was 20. I used to think it was one of the most romantic songs I ever heard.
Really? The lyrics are kind of depressing.
No, you gotta listen to the bridge. It’s all about loving someone so much you can’t stand the idea of losing them, even if it hurts, that all the hard stuff is worth it if you can get through together.
August pulls it up, lets it spin past the first two verses, into the line: You will remember, when this is blown over …
Okay, she types, thinking of Wes and how determined he is not to let Isaiah hand him his heart, of Myla holding Niko’s hand as he talks to things she can’t see, of her mom and a whole life spent searching, of herself, of Jane, of hours on the train—all the things they put