Page 16 of Regal Feather
Ever nodded. “Are you sure this is okay? They haven’t spotted us yet. We can totally turn around.”
“Do you want to turn around?”
It took him two seconds to answer. “I do if it’s what you want.”
“Uh-huh.”
For better or worse, the military had made it so that I got much better at pretending that taking the lead came naturally to me, so that was what I did.
The table had ten people I could count, but the four tables smashed together suggested a few more stragglers. Thankfully, before I could attempt to assess who was the safest person to sit beside, Ever lit up at the sight of his friends and disentangled himself from me.
Well, no. Without even a glance back, he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me as he greeted everyone. I nodded in everyone’s direction and pretended that I was totally memorizing their names until Ever finally took a seat that left me next to a guy with tattoos and too many piercings and in front of another with light brown hair that looked way too polished in comparison with everyone else. He was studying me, too, and he wasn’t being subtle about it.
“I’m Jaime, he/they.” I took the hand he was offering, the name stirring some memories. He was the one who made Ever nervous, even though he considered them close. If he scrutinized everyone like he just did me, I understood why. “If you ever want to be on my podcast, hit me up.”
“I’m sorry?”
Podcast?
Ever interjected. “Jaime has launched a political podcast. They tried to get me too, but I told him it wasn’t worth the bureaucratic nightmare.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Your poor mother.”
Ever snickered. “That part might make it worth it, actually.”
I hummed, but I was secretly glad that he had declined. I’d like to say I’d support anything he did, but as much as Ever liked to be contrary with his parents, he hated it when they openly showed their disappointment.
A podcast would ensure that happened.
The people around us followed with introductions. The guy sitting next to Ever with a slit shaved in his eyebrow was Sergio, he/him, and the one with the piercings next to me was Danny, also he/him. I was pretty sure those three were the ones Ever had mentioned, the ones who went shopping with him and were in the house. Then came the other two men to my left. León was the farthest from me, at the head of the table, and Carlos was between him and Jaime.
Carlos.
The one Ever said had served, too.
I wasn’t sure that I could’ve called it if he hadn’t. He was bulkier than everyone else here, and was sitting more straight, but he didn’t look… I didn’t know. He didn’t have the look I’d come to associate with people in the military.
It might just be that I hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t active.
“Santos.” I cleared my throat. “He/him.”
Sharing pronouns wasn’t a thing I’d ever done. I’d read about it, sure, and Ever and I had talked about it plenty, but it had never been a thing.
Everyone here had done it like it was the most natural thing in the world, though.
“So, you served, too?” León was the one to ask the question, not Carlos. He had a certain air about him, but despite the question, I didn’t think he had. It wasn’t the tattoos or anything, but something was certainly missing. “Dan mentioned it.”
My gaze darted between the three men. “Yeah. Air Force.”
I was supposed to spit out unit numbers and more shit, but I’d never cared about all that posturing. Truly, I didn’t want to talk about any of it. I just wanted to have breakfast, and prove to Ever that I wasn’t a complete failure, and he didn’t have to stop doing shit because I was around.
“Army.” Carlos mimicked me. “Do you have a case manager yet?”
“Uh, no.” Fuck. My fists clenched. Hadn’t I just been thinking about how I didn’t want to talk about this? Ever was right there, his hand on top of mine. He hadn’t paused his conversation with Sergio, one that I could see had him blushing to the tip of his ears, but he squeezed my hand nonetheless. I knew that if I pulled his chair closer, he wouldn’t even blink, but I froze. “I didn’t leave the traditional way.”
Thank fuck Carlos caught something there. He just nodded and then sent a look in Danny’s direction. It was enough for the questioning to stop.
Of course, the server came right away to get my order. An order I hadn’t had a single second to think about because they had QR codes for the menu stapled into the napkin holders, and nothing else, and… Fuck.
