// Toriv

The first spring rains went on for days, turning pretty much the whole city into a pile of icy sludge. This is only slightly better than it being an icy snowdrift like it is six months in the year. This is prime boot-ruining weather hour, fashionistas beware. I swear I was walking everywhere on my tippy toes, that’s just how afraid I was. Why don’t I live somewhere that’s never seen winter, like Los Angeles? Plus everyone’s gay in LA, that should be reason enough.

I’d miss this place too much, though, even with the garbage weather. And I couldn’t really run off to sunny Los Angeles with a date to keep.

Mahendra and I texted a little over the next few days, just making small talk. He sent me a few more smiley face emojis, which was precious as shit for some reason, but he didn’t actually show his face at the shop again until Friday afternoon. Jamie was in too, sitting perched on a barstool to show off what I can only assume were genuine red-soled Christian Louboutins. If you’ve ever met a Montréal elf who loves shoes more than his own life, it was probably Jamie Me’aranas.

“Bonjour, monsieur le professeur,” I called as the professor pushed open my door. “Are you enjoying monsoon season?”

“Pas du tout, monsieur le barista,” Mahendra said. He shook out his damp hair and looked sadly at his water-speckled briefcase. “Though if you want to see a real monsoon, try India in July.”

“I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you. How about a drink to warm you up?”

His face lit up in one of those shy little smiles that make his brown eyes shine behind his glasses. “Yes. The mocha, please.”

As he crept up to the counter to pay, Jamie turned in his stool with a sly “well, well, well” look that, I’ll be honest, put a bit of the fear of the gods in me. If my life were a kid’s cartoon, Jamie would definitely be the incredibly stylish but manipulative supervillain who worms his way into the hero’s friend circle before unleashing his dastardly plan and very best evil laugh. I love him to death, but just sayin’.

“Hello,” Jamie said with a flutter of his fingers. “Nice to see you again, Mahendra.”

Mahendra looked surprised just at being addressed, which I was finding out is a common look for him. “Hello, Jamie. You look lovely today. Louboutin?”

“Yes, sir. They’re the same model I wore to senior prom. To much scandal, I should add.”

“‘Scandalous’ is your middle name,” I said. “I wore my ratty old combat boots to my prom.”

“So did I,” Mahendra said a little wistfully, while me and Jamie looked at him with matching expressions of shock.

“You? Oh, darling,” Jamie said passionately. “I was sure you were more of a ‘not a thread out of place’ kind of guy.”

“I wasn’t always.” He shrugged, like saying that he hadn’t always so put-together wasn’t completely crazy. “I actually didn’t care much for nice clothes in my youth. And those were my favourite boots.”

“That has to be a joke. You’re made to walk down a runway. Tell him, Toriv.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said super smoothly. “You’re, like, really tall. So that’s great. For runway purposes.”

Jamie gave me a look like I’d just murdered all the younglings at the temple, while Mahendra said bashfully, “I’m only five ten. And not nearly handsome enough to model.”

Jamie shook his head. “Too humble. How is it you’re dating Toriv, who has ego practically bleeding out of his ass?”

“We’re not dating,” Mahendra and I said at the same time.

Jamie only raised his eyebrows at us. Daeci and Kiv passed by next to me and also raised their eyebrows at us. I’m pretty sure everyone in the shop was raising their eyebrows at us.

“We’re not,” I said again, because I love to put too fine of a point on things.

“I’m sorry,” Mahendra said.

“Why are you sorry?! I’m the one who’s still apologizing to you.”

“Oh, did you get mad at him for that night at the bar?” Jamie asked airily. “I told him he was being a brute, but does anyone ever listen to the guy in the dress?”

“It’s less to do with you being in a dress and more with you being a total busybody.”

“You don’t get as far as I have without stepping on a few toes. I hope you’re taking him out properly this time.”

“He is,” Mahendra said before I could answer. “A lounge in the Old Port.”

“Well, now. That’s much better,” Jamie said. “A nice man like you should be treated right.”

“He is! He will be,” I said loudly. “Now can we stop talking about how much of an asshat I am? It’s bad for business.”

“Is it?” Mahendra asked. He blew gently on the top of the mocha I had just handed him then looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “I thought people liked a bad boy.”

“I mean…they like a bad boy, but not a boy who’s been bad, ya dig me?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I dig you.”

Jamie smiled while watching at us, probably crafting about fifteen evil plans in the same moment. Then Mahendra sat next to Jamie at the coffee bar and things went on in that quiet late afternoon way they do at the shop. More than anything, I wanted to keep hanging around by the counter to talk, but duty calls. Cabinets to be stocked and fridges to be checked. I’ll be honest, I had a bit of trouble paying attention to all my tasks once Mahendra had settled at my counter. There was something about the sound of his voice that drew my ears, like I always knew the second he had started talking even though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He had a good voice. It sounded like he never raised it at all and even though it was low and kind of rumbly it wasn’t rough. I guess that’s what they call a velvety voice, like a good dark chocolate ganache. God, I love ganache.

Mahendra gave me a sweet little smile as he went that evening. His fingertips touched mine just a little as he was handing back his cup.

Saturday arrived in a flash, almost like all the world and time were pushing me to fix my stupid mistake as soon as possible. But the days normally pass pretty quickly anyway, seeing as I’m always working. After all, there wasn’t really much of a reason for me to be looking forward to Date Night 2: The Re-Datening so hard that it actually affected the normal flow of space time. As you know, I’ve been on tons of dates. An incredible amount of dates. So many dates that I don’t even know what to do with them all. Why can’t I hold all these dates? I am a dating veteran, is what I’m trying to say.

But Toriv, you might be saying at this exact moment, hold up, man, wait just a goshdarned second there, son, slow the tempo, my brother. What’s all this about you having been on sooo many dates when you spent basically an entire chapter of your scintillating and insightful autobiography telling us all about how you don’t date? Was that a lie? How could you lie to us, Toriv? How will we ever live with this betrayal?!

Well, I’m here to say relax, good fellow, old buddy, old pal. Ol’ Toriv wasn’t lying to you. Ol’ Toriv is like, the George Washington of elves. Straight as an arrow, except for, y’know, the not-straight part. Ol’ Toriv, however, does have his manly pride, so he doesn’t really appreciate being called out like this in the middle of a paragraph, so why don’t you just sit tight and let him do his thing, okay? Great.

All that to say, I wasn’t at all nervous about Date Numero Dos, because I am a man of vast experience. But okay, maybe I was a little bit nervous that this awesome date I’d planned wasn’t going to be quite as awesome in the moment. Mahendra was turning out to be difficult to predict, so for all I knew he could absolutely hate cool, sexy lounges and was just too polite to tell me so. Which was why I was already primed and ready with a list of alternate venues for Operation Rad Date Night, all within convenient walking or metro distance from the original date site. The only question left was, is five replacement date locations too much?

“It’s definitely too much,” Loriev told me over the phone that evening.

“I knew that.” I shoved my phone between my ear and my shoulder so I could shuffle through my clothes drawer with both hands. “I already knew that. Why did I do it if I already knew that?”

“Because you’re you and excessive planning is how you get things done? Don’t worry so much. Isn’t it enough that he wanted to go out with you again? I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am happy. Can’t you hear how happy I am?”

I yanked the entire drawer out of the dresser with a loud scrape of old creaky wood and dumped everything onto the bed, then tossed the drawer onto the top of pile, upon which it immediately keeled over and crashed onto the floor.

“It sounds more like you’re renovating your apartment,” Loriev said.

I sighed. “Now imagine what my brain sounds like right now.”

“Calm down. You’ve got this. Have I told you you’ve got this?”

“At least twenty times today,” I said pathetically. “But I could stand to hear it again.”

“You’ve got this,” Loriev said patiently. “Now hang up the phone, get dressed and go on your date. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay.” I took a deep breath, held it, then let it go as slowly as I could. “Okay. I’m good. I’m fine. I’m fantastic.”

“You are. And if he doesn’t see it after tonight, then he’s not nearly as nice a guy as I thought.”

“Heheh. Okay, I’ll go. Sorry to bug you.”

“You never bug me. Have fun.”

I put down my phone and threw it into the crumpled-up bedsheets with determination. I stared at the pile of my not-too-dressy-but-not-disgustingly-casual shirts that I’d just scattered all over the bed for a good long minute, then decided that it was too much to handle and went digging for my phone. When I found it, I saw the timed alert for my next appointment had popped up: Operation Rad Date Night, 6PM. I only had a bit of time left before Mahendra was expecting me at his place, so it was time to kick my own ass into high gear.

“Black, black, this weird beige, black,” I mumbled while flipping through my clothes. “God, why is everything I own black? Am I in a neutral-toned hell of my own design?”

My phone hummed in response. When I snatched it up out of habit, high gear be damned, I saw a message from Mahendra: Looks like rain tonight. I hope they didn’t open up the terrasse too early.

I bit my lip, feeling real glad that I’d thought to check the weather even with thoughts buzzing around in my head like a million hyped-up mosquitoes on a June night. I asked and its still nice & toasty in there!! So dont worry, I got it covered 😉

“Too much?” I muttered. Sometimes I regret being a trendy emoji-using millenial, but a guy does not change his texting habits overnight.

I looked again at my pile of clothes, then back at my phone. I typed what are you wearing? then backspaced it when I realized how it sounded, then wrote out of curiosity, what color are you going for, outfitwise?

After about a minute, he answered: Good question. Still getting dressed but right now, it’s a toss-up between royal purple or forest green.

“Purple!” I dived back into the clothes pile, my phone hand held up like I was drowning. “I can do purple. I swear to the gods I had something purple–aha!”

I finally found the V-neck t-shirt I’d been thinking of. It was clean, not too crumpled and made my bod look great, so it would do. Throw on a pair of skinny jeans in (you guessed it) black and the slim cut blazer I was suddenly really glad my mom had forced me to buy that one time, and you have one excellent and effortless urban cool outfit for going out on the town. It was almost like I’d excessively planned the whole thing.

A quick toss and style of the hair later, I was finally ready to go. I fed the rats their dinner, giving each of them a little pat before I went.

“Wish me luck, guys,” I said.

“Chitter chatter,” Sys and Dia said, which I took to be their own brand of ratty encouragement.

The sky was looking pretty rainy as I stepped out, but I was too amped to get going to bother looking for my umbrella, so I just went. You can plan things out all you want, but sometimes life (and messy closets) just force you to jump out and deal with things as they come.

I was at Mahendra’s door faster than even my brain on overdrive could figure out. I punched the buzzer before I had time for second thoughts, waiting on pins and needles until the intercom bleeped back at me.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mahendra! It’s me.”

“Oh, dear. Yes, of course.” Shuffling noises came from the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, I seem to be running late. You’d better come up.”

He buzzed me in and I stepped into a cool, quiet lobby all done up in cream-coloured tile. The only thing missing was a stony-faced concierge with a fancy cap and a dark past, but I guess it wasn’t that sort of condo. I crossed the lobby and pushed the button for the elevator, then decided that was going to take way too long and took the stairs to the third floor instead.

Mahendra’s apartment was at the end of a long, silent hallway. I could still feel my heart beating in my ears from the climb up the stairwell, but I wasn’t about to let a little cardiovascular activity get the better of me. I did spend a few seconds right in front of the door, checking to make sure I didn’t already have pit stains, then I knocked a little shave-and-a-haircut to announce my fabulous presence.

His smile, when he finally opened the door for me, was stunning. Now I don’t use the word “stunning” a whole lot because there aren’t many things in life that actually stun me, but for some reason Mahendra’s expression that evening was so bright and beautiful that I took a literal step back.

“Hey,” he said through that big, wonderful smile.

“Hey, yourself, my good man!” Good thing I can still talk even when my brain is busy being stunned. “Ready to have a gay old time?”

“Nearly ready.” He opened the door all the way to invite me in. “Sorry, I just need a few more moments.”

“It’s cool, I think I’m early anyway. Nice digs, by the way.”

“It’s modest,” he said modestly. “But thank you. Would you like a glass of water or tea? You seem a little winded.”

“Oh, that’s ’cause I took the stairs. For the ol’ thumper, you know. And yes, I know no one actually says that.”

“You just did,” he said pleasantly. “Water, then. This way.”

He led me into a warmly lit all-white kitchen, which was on the small side but still incredibly functional, and including a sparkling new stovetop I would have gladly given my left nut for. He poured me some water from a pitcher from the fridge and sat me at his table.

“I just need a minute to fix my face,” he said.

“But your face looks great,” I said, then decided to chug my cold water before I accidentally dished out any other heavy-handed compliments.

He didn’t seem to think I was being weird, though, because he just smiled and backed out. I waited until he was out of sight before putting my forehead down on the tabletop to ride out my insane bout of fridge water induced brainfreeze. Ow. Damn. Crap. Okay, we’re good now. I popped back up and washed my glass out, then had a look around the kitchen in the way my rats do when I switch up their cage layout and they need to scope out their new territory.

The living room looked like a better place for a snoop to start, so I headed in there to have a gander at his bookshelves. They were, as you can probably guess, full of books. A lot of them were big heavy textbooks that he probably used in his classes, but I figured out there was a dedicated fiction section too. Most of these were historical looking things about princes and ladies-in-waiting and stuff, then a few crime thrillers and more than a few romance novels (shocking). I resisted the urge to check if any of the romance books had heaving bosoms on the covers and moved on to the next shelf. This one was full of picture frames, mostly featuring his two nieces and a woman I had to assume was his sister. She had the same dark skin, curly hair and brilliant smile that he did, though she was shorter and rounder. A real mama bear type, I guessed. The older niece looked exactly like her too.

Once I’d gotten over the adorable family photos, I noticed a small simple golden frame at the back. It held a professional shot of another Indian woman, but she didn’t really look like family. Her hair was sleek and dark as ink and everything from her makeup to the string of pearls around her neck was absolute perfection. She was so beautiful it made me check my face in the reflection of my phone screen, you know, just in case something was out of place.

Then I heard his footsteps behind me. I turned so fast it was probably really obvious I’d been snooping, but tell me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing in my shoes.

“I should have known you wouldn’t stay put,” Mahendra said.

He had gone with the royal purple shirt after all, which he’d accessorized with a black leather tie and a silver tie pin. Good look, if I’m being honest.

I grinned my sincerest grin. “Sorry. I didn’t touch anything that wasn’t in plain sight, I swear.”

“I believe you.” He came up to the photo shelf and pointed out his sister Charlotte and her two daughters to me, as I’d already guessed.

“They’re so cute. And who’s that?” I asked super casually, meaning the small gold frame with the ridiculously pretty girl in it.

“That’s my closest friend, Anushka. She works at a law firm in Manhattan.”

“Geez. Are all of your friends this gorgeous and successful?”

He laughed. “Some of them. Anushka is the cream of the crop, so to speak.”

I looked at Anushka’s perfect smile again and joked, “Should I be jealous?”

“Oh, not at all.”

Something about the way he said it sounded funny to me, but in the moment I couldn’t really figure it out. Then he was steering me away from his prized possessions with a hand just above my right hip, just a light little touch that was so fast I almost didn’t have time to be distracted by it. Almost. What can I say, I’m extremely distractible.

Cue dark chocolate ganache voice: “Shall we be going?”

I lead him all the way to the nearest metro platform in relative silence. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk, but there was something about those early date minutes that called for quiet. Maybe we were sizing each other up, building up our second impressions.

My second impression of him was that even if he didn’t care much about clothes in his so-called youth, he sure learned a lot along the way. His outfit was meticulous, which is another word I don’t use a lot, so take that however you like. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen anyone wear a tie pin, which is probably a sign of it being an old fusty thing, but he made it work. His watch was silver too. He fiddled with it a lot to make it sit just right then he would smooth the sleeve of his coat over it, over and over like he was never satisfied with the way the fabric lay.

After a few minutes of waiting around on the humid metro platform and watching him fuss with his clothes, I moved a bit closer and caught the edge of his sleeve with my fingertips.

“You look good,” I said as he looked up at me in surprise. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” he said. He glanced away but his expression was kind of funny, like he was trying not to smile and failing hard. “I know that I know how to dress, at the very least.”

“Yeah, you do, so why you fussin’? Do you need a fidget spinner or something?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

“Then maybe a bit of a confidence booster. Like–” I struck a pose like Will Smith showing off his girl to the red carpet crowd and yelled, “Lookee here! Best-dressed man on this platform! Send your good vibes!”

“Stop it!” Mahendra hissed.

He swiped a hand at me but I danced away, then pointed at him and said, “BELIEVE IN ME WHO BELIEVES IN YOU!”

“Stop–people are staring–” He was trying so hard to be serious but he was definitely laughing, so who’s the winner here? Yeah, it’s me.

The metro rushed into the station just as our laughter was dying down. He shook his head at me as the closest car slowed next to us, but I just grinned and quirked my eyebrows, which is my standard response whenever anyone tries to tell me how to act. He gestured me into the car with a big regal sweep of his arms, so I went in with my nose held up high like a snobby duchess.

The metro car was about as full as you’d expect on a rainy Saturday evening, so we got stuck metro surfing in the middle of the car. I’d forgotten how much taller he was than me, so I got to spend most of the ride thinking about just that as I stared into his shoulder and tried not to bump into him with every sway of the car. It’s hard to talk in a noisy crowded metro car, so we didn’t, but the silence was more bearable this time, more easy. That’s the magic of sharing a laugh over your date’s dumb antics, I guess.

More people than is probably legally allowed had to squeeze themselves into the car at the big connecting station, so Mahendra had to move over into my space. He whispered “sorry”, his face so close to mine that I felt his breath in my hair. I shook my head and let my hand rest on his arm to keep us steady. The little smile he had for the whole rest of the trip was adorable.

Back outside, it was just a skip and a hop to the Ver’aranas Lounge. By that time, the air was getting misty and heavy, the usual introduction to big bad rain. We pushed into the entrance of the lounge just as the first drops starting falling behind us.

“Whew,” I said. “Made it.”

“And just in time,” Mahendra said, looking back out into the street where the rain had already stained the cobblestones of the Old Port dark blue. “May I take your coat?”

I let him slip my coat off my shoulders like in an old timey Hollywood movie. He waved away my dollar when I tried to pay for coat check too, which was like, damn. Guess I wasn’t the only one who had decided to ramp it up for the great Re-Datening. It felt kind of nice. I mean, when was the last time anyone offered to take your coat? Basically never.

We moved into the lounge proper. It was just the way I remembered it, with a few added string lights and the ambient music set to some totally cool chillhop numbers to keep with the times. It wasn’t too noisy, but the night was just getting started. I watched Mahendra’s face nervously, but he seemed just fine, even happy. He caught me staring and smiled all the way up to his eyes.

He said, “It’s very nice in here. Is your friend working tonight?”

The feeling of relief that washed over me made me feel a little floppy, but I managed to answer, “Yeah, she should be. Let’s go over to the bar once we have our table.”

Turns out there was no need, because the moment we had pushed our way over to the cutest little reserved table by the balcony windows, there she was as if summoned. She wrestled me into a bear hug before I could even turn to say hi.

“Toriv!” Korianis shouted. She’s a huge elf with a huge voice like thunder rumbling right over your head, so the effect was pretty intense. “How are you, little man?”

“I’m just dandy, big lady,” I said while trying really hard to breathe normally. “I love ya, but please free my lungs.”

She put me down and wrapped an arm around my neck instead. Not much better, breathing-wise, but at least I had my feet on the ground.

“Mahendra,” I said breathlessly, “this is my good friend and fellow entrepreneur Korianis Ver’aranas. If she loves you then she really loves you, but if she doesn’t then you’d better be ready to die.”

“Sounds like my kind of person,” Mahendra said.

He shook Kori’s free hand. I could see them both leaning into the handshake and squeezing real hard. This went on for long enough that I wondered if I should intervene before someone busted a vein.

“So you’re the new man,” Kori said. “Toriv did say he needed somewhere to keep it classy. Now I see why.”

“He also told you not to bring it up,” I said, still squished up in the crook of Kori’s arm.

Kori shrugged and Mahendra laughed. I see how it is.

“You’d better sit and let me serve you fine and classy gents, then,” Kori said. She pushed me down into my chair, then helped Mahendra into his. Like a normal person, and not by slamming him down so hard his knees gave out, like mine had.

She took our first drink and hors d’oeuvre orders, then stomped away to get them going. If you haven’t already guessed, Kori does nothing without making a huge racket. She says it’s how she makes her mark on the world.

Then I was alone with Mahendra again, sitting across from him at a small table with our knees almost touching. He was looking around the lounge, taking in the dope atmosphere with that pensive look he usually has.

I cleared my throat and asked, “So…do you like it here? If you don’t, we can go somewhere else. I know a couple of other places. Like two or three. Definitely not an excessive number of them, like five.”

“And waste our drinks? I think not.” He turned back to me and adjusted his glasses. “No, it’s just fine. It’s wonderful, actually. I haven’t been somewhere like this in ages.”

“Me neither. Uh, sorry about Kori.”

“No,” he said again. “I like your friends. Most of them, anyway.”

He looked away and sipped his ice water, then said, “I wasn’t aware I was ‘the new man’, though.”

God, cringe. “Ah, uh, well, people like to talk. Especially Korianis. All I said when I made the reservation was that I wanted someplace classy to take someone to.”

“And everyone automatically assumes it’s a date?”

“I guess that says more about me than them, huh?”

He smiled into his glass, then set it down carefully and reached out for me. He brushed the edge of my sleeve with his fingertips, so close to my skin that it sent a shiver down my arm.

“Royal purple,” he said in a low voice. “It looks good on you.”

“Thanks.” I let my eyes linger on him, drinking in the deep purple hue of the shirt, the texture of the leather tie, the glint of the silver pin like a tiny star. “You too.”

When he smiled next, it was different than before. Like there were a lot of things he wanted to say, but he was going to sit on them for a bit, just to ramp up the mystery factor. Which was just fine for now, I think. In a place like that, with the smooth slow beats going and the liquor flowing warm and golden, it felt like we had all the time in the world.

\\ Mahendra

When I called Anushka that evening, tormented as I was by the usual assault of doubt and excitement, I was consternated to see her hang up on me before the phone had rung twice. I fumed like a teenager for about a minute before giving up the cause and tossing my mobile back onto the bed. I had better things to worry about, like what to wear for the all-important second date. So far, my attempts to put together a decent outfit hadn’t brought me much farther than “maybe suspenders”.

“Who wear suspenders to a date?” I said to my silent phone. My expression, reflected back to me in the dark screen, said A nerd. Which is what you are, anyway.

As I was contemplating the dark pit of sartorial despair that was slowly forming in my soul, my phone came to life on the bed. Anushka was calling me back.

I answered with a peevish, unbecoming “You hung up on me.”

In her best American drawl, Anushka said, “Sorry, bro, I was on the can.”

She could have been joking, but I know her too well to believe she was being anything but truthful. “Why do you have your phone with you in the toilet?”

“I was working.”

“On the t–“

“Hush hush, I know. The worst part is that it’s nearly the only time I’ve had to go to the toilet all day. Remind me why I chose this profession again?”

Despite my current distress, I smiled at her familiar voice. “Because you wanted to make enough money to support yourself and your acrylic nail habit until you found a rich American lawyer to marry and have beautiful mixed babies with?”

“Despite your tone,” Anushka said with a sigh, “I know intellectually that you support my life choices no matter what.”

“Of course I do, gold digger.”

“Cheers, liberal hippie.”

“Listen, I just need a quick word then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I absolutely want you in my hair, you goose. What is it?”

I switched over to video calling and focused the camera on my open closet. “Clothes, I need them.”

“I see plenty,” she said flatly.

“I mean…I need a good outfit for tonight. For right now, actually.”

“And?”

“And you have impeccable style?”

“Thanks, but wasn’t actually fishing for that. I mean what do you need it for. Context, my dear.”

I had hoped to get through this conversation without actually giving away the cause for it, but I suppose I should have known better than to try that with my best friend, who is also incidentally a barrister.

“It’s for…dinner.” I tried, but when she gave me the auditory equivalent of raising an eyebrow in scepticism, I relented and said, “I’m going on a date.”

“Interesting,” she said, drawing out every syllable malevolently. “Is it he of the dirty chai?”

“Yes. It’s the second time I’m seeing him, actually.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment or two, but I heard the Very interesting as well as the I told you so in her pregnant silence.

“Well, what’s his style like?” she asked finally. “Are you looking to match or contrast?”

I stared into my closet’s gaping maw. “Matching seems a bit much for a second date, don’t you think?”

“I suppose. What ever happened to just going as you are?”

Who I am is incredibly dull, though, is what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t answer that unless I wanted to be verbally eviscerated, so I settled with, “Dunno. I’m just not feeling comfortable in anything right now.”

“Let’s have a look, then.”

I took Anushka’s little video self on a tour of my closet and the environs, right down to my collection of watches and the small fortune in gold jewelry that I haven’t worn in years but kept out of filial guilt.

“Put something on for me,” she ordered next.

“So I’m to clotheshorse about, now?”

“We have to start somewhere. Show me your best face.”

I grimaced at her. She rolled her eyes so hard it might have hurt.

Four changes later, I was still undecided and she was getting impatient, which historically has never lead to anything good. Still, she waited until I’d done a little turn for her in the latest outfit, then declared, “You look just fine. There’s nothing wrong with your clothes.”

“Is it me, then?” I wondered aloud. My frown, reflected back at me in the mirror above my dresser, was thunderous.

“Yes, it is you. You’re doing the thing you do.”

“What thing.”

“You know the thing. The thing that makes you refuse to dress and go out like a normal person.”

“I’m not–“

“The thing that made you chop your hair off and cry all day on the floor of our flat.”

“Didn’t need reminding, thanks,” I sighed. I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed a hand over my face, smudging my glasses horrifically in the process. “God, I am doing the thing though, aren’t I?”

Anushka nodded. Her words were harsh, but she wasn’t unsympathetic. That’s just the way she is.

“I know you must be nervous,” she said. “But if he really likes you, won’t he just accept you the way you are?”

“Who knows.”

“Well, only one way to find out.”

In that moment, I would have loved nothing more than to stay curled up in bed and to spend the rest of my evening talking to Anushka. She’s always had a way of dampening my fears and making me feel braver than I am. Being close to her is a comfort I never did manage to describe. Even now, from hundreds of miles away, her voice and manner were slowly bringing me down from the quasi-manic state that manifested in me every time the concept of being seen and judged by others overwhelmed me. I think she’s the only person in the world who knows or cares when I become like this.

On the small screen, she looked as beautiful and brilliant as I remembered, and I found myself wondering for the thousandth time why we hadn’t managed to stay together. I knew better than to ask — we’d been through it enough times, as it is — but the thought was there, sticking in my mind like a speck of dust I just couldn’t clean out.

I glanced out the window above the bed, where the sky was now completely dark. It was nearly time to go and I wasn’t even close to being dressed, let alone mentally prepared for whatever social perils the evening might have in store for me. Even for late winter, the underside of the clouds seemed unusually heavy. It was warmer outside than it had been in weeks, though, so I thought perhaps it might even rain instead of snow.

I typed a message out to Toriv as Anushka said airily, “You chose a pair of trousers, at least. That’s a start. One might even say it’s the essential piece.”

“Trousers usually are.”

I faffed about some more, trying to figure out which watch I wanted to wear and chatting with Anushka to keep my mind occupied. Then my phone vibrated and Toriv’s name popped up on-screen, right next to Anushka’s waiting expression.

“Just a minute, Anushka. Toriv just texted.”

“Toriv,” she said musingly. “You know, I don’t think I remember you ever dating any elves.”

“Really? You must know I’m not one to discriminate.”

She rolled her eyes as if to say that’s for certain. “I remember the satyr boy from college. And the string of flatmates quickly turned ex-flatmates.”

“Oi.”

“And that girl with the ringlets, what was her name…Janice, the boring librarian!”

“Librarians aren’t boring, just misunderstood.”

“And plenty more I don’t remember, I’m sure. Your ancestors are rolling in their graves, my dear.”

“They can roll all they like. I’m sure it’s excellent post-life exercise.” I glanced down at the two closest shirts thrown together in the bed. Royal purple and forest green. Surely I could choose one of those by the time Toriv turned up at the door.

Anushka was quiet for a minute, then she said, “You seem to have things well in hand. I’ll go now, let you finish.”

What I felt next is hard to describe, though I’m certain everyone must have felt it at some point in their lives. When we signed off that night, or indeed whenever Anushka and I have said goodbye in the long years of our friendship, my heart seemed to reach out for her, as if to say don’t go. The feeling had the desperate, grasping quality of a child that wants for loving. The sensation always leaves me feeling a little abashed, a little ashamed. How long ago did I learn to feel shame just for not wanting to be alone?

It was a question for another time, or more likely, for never. So instead, I said, “Then I’ll let you get back to your work. Please remember to go to the toilet every once in a while.”

“I’ll do what I want. This is America, land of the free.”

“Feel free to take care of yourself, then.”

“Take care of yourself too, Mahendra.” She paused like she wanted to add something. For just a moment, her expression took on a worried cast. She jokes about my moods and hounds me to break out of my shell, but she knows better than anyone why I have to be so cautious. She’s seen what could happen to me if I’m not.

“I’ll be fine,” I said eventually, when the silence had grown too thick. “Like you always say, there’s no knowing unless you try.”

“You taught me that first,” Anushka said crossly. “Twit.”

I laughed. “Goodbye, harpy.”

“Text me afterwards!”

Then she was gone, leaving me once again with a dark phone screen and uncertainty blooming in my heart like poisonous thorns. Well, there was no banishing the weeds without bringing in the sun.

The doorbell rang as I was struggling into my trousers. I looked up at the clock in alarm. Of course I had spent far too much time fretting about getting ready and not nearly enough actually getting ready. Now I was going to be tardy as well as harassed.

I yanked on my trousers and jogged to the door to push the button. Toriv’s voice came through, so I buzzed him in then turned around anxiously in the hall until he knocked. I took a second to compose myself, the words Calm down, you great goose coming to me in Anushka’s voice, then I opened the door.

There he was, looking a little windblown but as perfectly charming as always. His crooked eyetooth poked through his smile, which was a look so dear that I just had to grin in response. The urge to kiss him in that moment was so overbearing that my brain shut down for a second, so it was only through the miracle of habit that I managed to answer when he asked “Ready to have a gay old time?”

I ushered him in, set him up in the kitchen, and excused myself to finish dressing. As I was knotting my tie and finally choosing a watch, I strained my ears to catch any sound of Toriv moving about the flat. After a moment, I heard him pad softly to the sitting room, making audible “hmm!” noises like he was at a museum exhibit.

“Okay,” I murmured to myself in the mirror. “You’re dressed. You look good. You’re going to go out and have fun.” My reflected self smiled self-consciously. “No problem at all.”

I went back out, peering around the corner of the hallway to see where Toriv had gotten himself to. He was standing by the shelf where I keep my photos, observing them with concentration.

I said, “I should have known you wouldn’t stay put.”

He turned, boyish guilt written all over his face. I liked that look on him too.

He had seemed curious, so I pointed to each of the faces in the picture frames in turn. “There’s my sister Charlotte and her girls, Celeste and Anastasia. They’re a bit younger here than in the videos I showed you.”

“They’re so cute. And who’s that?”

He gestured to the gold frame that held Anushka’s portrait. I had been visiting her briefly in Manhattan a few years back and had gone with her to get the professional headshot done. I remembered how I had waved the photographer away and had placed her hair and pearls just so, while she had smirked mischievously under the bright lights.

Perhaps it’s bad form to keep a portrait of one’s ex-fiancée on the mantle, as it were, but hiding it in a box somewhere would have rung false. So there it stood, both a comfort and a reminder of things lost.

I turned my thoughts back to the present. It would be truly foolish to ignore what was right in front of me, no matter what the eventual outcome of such a dalliance may be.

I summoned my courage and charm and let the smile bloom over my face, hoping that my sincerity would shine through my nervousness.

“Shall we be going?”

=====

We made good time to our date destination, which was fortunate considering it began to rain just as we were stepping inside.

The contrast between this place and the bar from the previous week was like night and day. The lounge was dimly lit in a oceanic kind of way, the music muffled behind the heavy velvet drapes lining the tall windows. It was a warm and pleasant space, filled with a murmur of low, intimate voices and the gentle clink of ice in glass. I loved it instantly.

Toriv was watching me with a kind of anxiety, so I was quick to reassure him. “It’s very nice in here. Is your friend working tonight?”

We wove around the little tables and couches towards the tiny windowside table marked with a Reserved card, and were soon accosted by Korianis, Toriv’s friend and owner of the establishment. She was a very large, very loud elf, fair-skinned and golden blond where Toriv was tanned and dark. Good handshake, as well. It’s silly, but I’m very serious about handshakes. It’s the first indication of someone’s mettle one can get, after all.

After we had been greeted, seated, and served, we sat together in silence. Now that we were here, I had no clue what to say to him. I was happy to see him, almost ecstatically so, but the need to prove myself interesting to him was apparently keeping me from being of any interest at all.

So it was small talk for a while, as the murmur of voices and the hum and boom of the music settled over us like a haze. He was pleasant to talk to, even if it was only about the weather and goings-on at the shop. I told him a bit about my classes, though not in as much plodding detail as to be boring. He seemed quite interested and insisted there simply must be some digging going on — it’s the anthropologist’s curse, to always be mistaken for an archeologist — but I denied the whole thing by claiming that dinosaurs were never too interesting for me anyway, to which he replied with amused disbelief.

“Everybody’s got something for them in dinosaurs, man,” he extolled as Korianis returned with our drinks and food. “I like the weird little ones. Y’know, the ones who ate the eccentric billionaire in that one book?”

I thought about it and said I supposed all the dinosaur-era creatures of the deep ocean were pretty cool, which made Toriv shudder and declare he’d never dare dip his toes in anything deeper than his Long Island iced tea. He then sipped said Long Island demonstratively.

“That’s a little funny,” I said, as I tucked in some rather good fried calamari. “Didn’t the ancestors of clan Vanellas come from across the sea?”

“Yeah. I mean, that’s what they say about us, anyway.” He munched a sweet potato chip thoughtfully. “Guess I just don’t have the sea-faring gene in me. My mom’s been wanting to go back there, wherever there is. Last I heard, people were saying the homeland was somewhere near Puerto Rico, but who knows.”

“It might be nice to go back.”

“I guess so. I don’t really speak Spanish, though. Or elven, for that matter. Seems almost silly to go knowing that.”

He smiled wanly, like it was a thought he’d had many times before. There was a look in his eyes that was familiar, something distant and yearning, yet resigned. I thought of England, so far away, and of India, even farther, and felt a little the same way.

To fill the slightly awkward gap in the conversation, I offered him a particularly crunchy looking piece of fried squid, which he exchanged for a couple of chips and a rueful smile.

“How about you?” he asked. “Speak anything other than English and that delectable Parisian French?”

“I speak Punjabi as well, though not much lately. I’m probably horribly rusty.”

“That’s still mega cool. My mom’s always pestering me to learn elven, but I’m like, when’s a working adult gonna find the time? Plus she barely speaks it, so whatever.”

“She doesn’t?”

“Mom grew up here in the city. My dad’s the one who’s all old world this, elven culture that.” He grinned. “Elfiest guy I know. He’s on the council of elders now, too.”

“Impressive!”

“Hahah. Ah, who knows, they might have just brought him in to fill their Vinoriev Vanellas quota. The previous one died last year.”

I must have had quite a bewildered look on my face, because Toriv laughed until the patrons at other tables began to stare at us.

“That was a joke! God, your face.” He swiped a tear of laughter away with the heel of his hand. “Just a pinch of elven humour. Every other guy in clan Vanellas is named Vinoriev. My dad might as well be called Jim the Big Ol’ Elf, descendant of the guy who ruined all the clanspeople’s lives.”

“I-I see.” I hid my embarrassment in my glass. “I had no idea.”

“Can’t say I blame ya,” Toriv replied cheerfully. “So you see, I’m not totally culturally-challenged when it comes to my own folk.”

“I don’t think you’re culturally-challenged.” When he tipped his head at me with a skeptical look, I tried to smile reassuringly. “I know how hard it can be to feel so far removed from one’s family heritage.”

He considered me over the rim of his glass, his eyes roving like he could read my own history on my face. The feeling unnerved me, but I found I couldn’t look away.

“It’s weird,” he said finally. “I don’t usually talk about this stuff. Am I being a downer?”

“Not at all.”

“It kind of depresses me to think about it sometimes. It’s like when–it’s like when you order something at a restaurant, but once you start eating you realize you wanted to order something else? You never even got to see the thing you didn’t order, but you sort of miss it anyway…”

He looked self-conscious and awkward suddenly, like he hadn’t meant to speak. The drone of other conversations filled our little pocket of silence. I watched him as he finished his cocktail in one long gulp then fished out an icecube to crunch methodically between his teeth.

It was strangely moving to see this new side of him. He had put into words so easily that nebulous feeling of loss that often comes from making a life in a country different from your own, a feeling that had formed much of the basis for my decision to study anthropology in the first place. It was a common ground we shared that I hadn’t expected to find at all.

Before I could allow myself any second-guessing, I reached out and gently placed my fingertips on his hand resting on the tabletop. He looked at me from under his lashes, not smiling exactly, but not saying no either. It was a strange moment and I almost pulled away, but at the last second he flipped his hand over and caught my fingers with his.

“You’re sweet,” Toriv said. His eyes were very warm. “Hey, want another drink?”

I had barely nodded in response before he was off towards the bar, his hand slipping quickly from mine. As I watched him go, I felt bereft yet brave, disappointed yet brimming with anticipation. It was all I could do to stay in my seat and occupy myself with people-watching instead of haring off after him like a dog in heat.

Just as I’d managed to convince myself I was not going to succumb to hormonal excess anytime in the near future, Toriv returned with the second round in hand. He placed a delicate-stemmed martini glass in front of me. The glass was fired in a way that made it appear iridescent as an old dragon’s scales, and was filled with a swirling brown liquid.

“It’s a chocolate martini,” Toriv said, settling down with his second Long Island iced tea. “I had Kori make it for you special. A one of a kind, exquisitely crafted, totally original never-before-seen drink.”

“I saw it on the menu earlier,” I pointed out.

He shrugged and crossed his legs under the table. The toe of his boot brushed the side of my calf.

“It’s on me, anyhow,” he said genially, which I gathered was as close as he would get to admitting that one. “To thank you for giving me a second chance. Give it a try.”

I sipped the chocolate martini delicately. The flavour was decadent, smooth and sweet and just boozy enough to satisfy. It was a drink to savour. I licked my lips to get the sweetness off, and was gratified to see Toriv’s eyes flick down to my mouth.

In the end, we lingered there for hours, exchanging rounds and chatting. My nervousness slowly melted away as the night wore on. It was oddly easy to relax with him. He had an inviting, open demeanor that encouraged you to lean in and bend his ear. Suddenly I was desperate to tell him all my secrets, to lay myself bare, so to speak, but I managed to rein myself in. Caution, murmured the constant slow beats coming from the walls. Some things really are too good to be true, you know.

We headed out just as the night was getting started for the younger club-going folk. Toriv got some appreciative looks as we filtered out through the growing crowd, a fact that I only noticed, probably, because I was looking so appreciatively at him myself. He helped me into my coat at the entrance, his hands pausing on my shoulders as I fiddled with my collar, on the pretense of “checking how much taller you really are compared to my tiny self”, as he said in my ear.

Thankfully, it had stopped raining by the time we emerged back into the street. The night was cool but not bitingly cold, one of those famous Montréal winter fakeouts before the temperatures plunged back to -20 for another week or two. My breath steamed in the air, backlit by the silvery glow of the wrought-iron streetlamps of the Old Port.

“Gods above, below, and everywhere around,” Toriv said as he stepped out beside me. “I’m actually really hungry.”

“Oh no. It’s true we didn’t actually have dinner, did we?”

“Then Toriv needs a snack. Join me?”

We wandered down the street for a time, peering in through foggy restaurant windows while Toriv searched “where to eat when you’re mad hungry because you forgot to eat actual food” on his phone. Most of the places we saw were winding down for the night. We were about to call it a lost cause when I had a better look at my surroundings and realized that I knew where I was.

“I think I know someplace,” I told Toriv. “Just down the street here, in Chinatown.”

Toriv lit up like it was Christmas morning and entreated me to lead the way, so I took us down the sloped winding road from the old town into the even older one, where the lights had a reddish cast and the eaves were strung with banners and alphabets from dozens of nations and clans across the world. It was louder and brighter here than it had been in the Old Port, as though the multi-tongued denizens of Chinatown were only just getting started for the night.

“I love this place,” Toriv said. Then he latched onto the edge of my coat sleeve and didn’t let go until I’d found the door to the place I’d been searching for.

It was a little Vietnamese bistro, similar in size and atmosphere to the Thai restaurant that Toriv and I had visited on our first date. There were a number of patrons despite the late hour, sitting at well-worn but spotlessly clean laminate tables and slurping from steaming bowls of soup.

We sat and were promptly served by a drowsy teenager with wildly-coloured hair. We had barely had time to make the usual complaints about the weather before we were delighted by the delivery of two huge bowls of fragrant broth. I began salivating just at the smell. Toriv mimed going into a lady-like swoon that would have definitely gone into Scarlet O’Hara’s top ten, then began loading his soup with condiments from the sauce bottles and the pile of sprouts, basil, and tiny chili peppers provided.

He said, “This stuff is the best on a cold rainy night, huh?”

I grinned and said, “Pho sure”, which under normal circumstances might have gotten me ejected from the date for indecent wordplay, but Toriv acted like it was the funniest thing he’d heard in his life.

After that it was all business, the two of us spooning and slurping with alacrity, enjoying the tender noodles and savoury, aromatic soup, the satisfyingly chewy bits of tripe and brisket mingling to perfection with the crisp little onions and plentiful spices. I’d eaten at this establishment before and already knew the food to be excellent, but it seemed even better now that I was sharing it with someone, especially since that someone was so obviously enjoying himself.

Perhaps we should have continued to talk, to get on with the whole getting-to-know-you ritual that the date required, but it was pleasant to just sit and eat. Sometimes nervousness makes one want to fill any awkward silences with even more awkward small talk, but in that moment I felt easy, absurdly easy, and I wouldn’t have traded the comfortable quiet for anything in the world.

By the time we finished sharing a little pot of green tea, it had gotten quite late. I only thought to check my watch when the first wave of sleepiness came upon me, and said “Oh dear” with such dismay that Toriv snorted into his tea cup.

“Past your bedtime?” he asked.

“Eons past it.” Now that I’d admitted it, the tiredness hit me all at once. I barely managed to stifle a yawn. “If you don’t mind, it may be time to go.”

“Of course. I’ll treat ya.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I insist.”

“You shan’t.”

“I shan! Shall. Absolutely will. Come on, bro–“

I stood abruptly and raced to the cash register with Toriv at my heels. The rainbow-haired waitress looked at us in sleepy bewilderment.

“Just the one bill, please,” I said to her.

“No fair,” Toriv whined.

“Your punishment for giving me so many free coffees,” I told him as I tapped my card before he could shoulder me aside. “I’ve never seen anyone so insistent on paying my way. It’s almost like you have something to prove.”

“Don’t I?” He dropped a handful of coins into the tip jar and pouted at me, like he was daring me to keep him from paying for that as well.

“Well, your wealth isn’t it.”

“That’s great, ’cause I ain’t wealthy. Guess I’ll need to find other ways to impress you.”

“Yes, do.”

“Mmyes, do,” he repeated in lightly mocking mimicry. I pushed him lightly as we stepped back out into the cold with expressive shivers and silly laughter lingering on our lips.

The trip home was much too quick. Though my sleepiness was reaching critical levels, I was desperate to stay, to keep close to him and continue drinking in his charm and good cheer. For a moment I was certain that I was going to ask him to come back up to my flat, and every reader in the world knows where that would have led us. I wasn’t opposed to the idea, quite the contrary, but something in me was still whispering Not Yet in a nasty, concerned voice, and I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or grateful that the voice of callous reason still had its hold upon me.

Toriv walked me to the door of my flat and leaned casually on the frame as I fumbled with my key. I heard him giggle at my efforts and was going to reprimand him for teasing me, but in the moment I didn’t quite trust my own voice.

“I had a lot of fun with you today,” he said, once I had finally wrestled the door open.

I chanced a look at him. His face seemed genuinely warm and happy, so I allowed my expression to reflect my own happiness.

“I had fun with you too,” I said. “Thank you. It was nice of you to take me out like this.”

“Heheh. Well, it was the least I could do after showing you such an awful time before.”

“Are you still on about that? I’ve already forgiven you.”

“So you were mad!”

“Just a touch.”

“I’m guessing that even just a touch of anger is a lot, coming from you.”

I ducked my head to hide my smile, but he caught my chin in his hand and kept my eyes level with his. In the dim light of the hall, his eyes were dark green, the pupil blown wide with interest.

“Don’t look away,” he murmured. “I like it when you look at me.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out as only a breath. He looked obliquely up at me, his head lowered coquettishly though he had forbidden me from looking away.

All the want in my body had curled up somewhere in the back of my throat, making it difficult to breathe. Then, because he wasn’t moving forward or away or anywhere at all, I slowly tipped my face down towards his and met his mouth with mine.

It wasn’t a deep kiss, or particularly long, or even particularly good, but I had been waiting for so long for any kind of definite contact with him that it seemed for a moment like everything was riding on this one little thing. It was like being a teenager all over again, losing sleep and breath over the slightest brush of lips.

I felt his hands alight on my shoulders, keeping me close, so I pushed gently forward, dropping my keys onto the hall carpet so I had both hands free to grasp at him in turn. He let out a quick breath, like he was about to speak, but then he just tugged me closer, his mouth opening to mine. His lips were dry and chapped from the cold but his skin was very warm. I relished the coffee-whiskey-coriander taste of him, trying my hardest to memorize the weight and feel of his body close to mine before the inevitable parting.

We did part eventually; it felt like an age and no time at all. His fingertips were hot against my cheek. He stroked me once before leaning in for another peck and a whispered request: “Invite me in?”

And Lord did I want to. It would be so easy, to give in to the rush of need that had reared up in me like a beast revived. All I had to do was say yes, please, stay, and he would. There was nothing simpler in the world.

I said, “I’m sorry.”

He said, “You’re sorry?”

I said, “Not tonight.” I bit my lip, but when I tasted him on my own skin, it only made things worse, and I could only repeat, “I’m sorry.”

There was a beat where I had time to live an entire life’s worth of embarrassment and sadness, then Toriv shook his head and laughed his most lovely laugh to date.

“Dude,” he said. “It’s fine. No big deal.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. I know my dark good looks and lite biker aesthetic can be deceiving–” His eyetooth peeked out cheekily. “–but I’m not a total scoundrel.”

“No,” I said faintly, “just a touch of one.”

He grinned in agreement then stood up on his toes to give me one last little kiss in the corner of my mouth. Then he gave me a good squeeze around the middle. I embraced him back, gazing into the middle distance behind him in a sort of kiss-induced daze.

He propped his chin up against my shoulder to say, “Don’t leave me on read, okay?” I hadn’t the foggiest what that meant, so I was glad when he clarified: “I want to see you again, so don’t make me pine. It’s a bad look for me.”

I rubbed my cheek against his hair, which was even blacker than mine and very thick and soft. “I won’t. I’m not in the habit of throwing off people I like.”

He pulled away, finger-combing his hair briefly before he flashed me another crooked toothed smile, and then he was gone, down the silent hall and out through the stairwell before I could even blink.

I picked up my keys and went into my flat. As I was toeing off my shoes, I felt my mobile buzz in my pocket. When I flicked it on, I had five unread messages from Anushka.

go get ’em tiger

how’s dinner?

oi, you’d better not be drunk or dead

or fornicating. fornicating seems the most likely

so??

I bit my lip to keep from laughing aloud in the nighttime gloom of my flat, then I wrote to her: Verdict, besotted. And there’s a chance he might be as well.

A minute later, she answered mrow. there’s the conqueror of hearts i know and love

I told her Oh piss off, to which she replied with an animated sticker of a chubby grey kitty cat shooting off cartoon hearts, and then with the decidedly unadorable message of just as well, reckon you really needed a shag

I called her just to say “Actually, literally, absolutely piss off”, but she just laughed and asked me how it went.

So I curled up on the couch and told her, my face feeling radiant with embarrassment and happiness the whole time.