Kinda Complicated

Family & Cheese

The housewarming is in an apartment block older than anyone inside it. Concrete stairwells, half the buzzers painted over or labeled in faded Sharpie. The hallway reeks of garlic, old laundry, and, tonight, perfumed cheese. Ash stands outside the unit for a good sixty seconds, listening to the chaotic melody of people shouting, music, and the occasional crash. The front door is propped with a book: ''The Joy of Cooking.'' A partygoer’s arm cannonballs out and snatches the book, holding the door wide with a sneakered foot. ''Come in or the smoke alarm wins,'' she says, half threat, half invitation.

Ash steps through, scanning the geography: open concept, linoleum tiles, more people than furniture. Mikey is at the far end of the kitchen, smile already bracing for impact. There's a blue Gatorade bottle on the counter, waiting. He’s wearing a sweater that looks new, but already has a thumbhole stretched out in one sleeve. Even from a distance, Ash could see the splatter of blue ink on his fingers.

Ash threads through clusters of strangers, aiming for the kitchen, eyes skimming over the details. There’s a tower of Jenga blocks on the coffee table, a fake tree lopsided in the corner, a wall of high school portraits taped up by the entry in deliberate bad taste. Mikey’s sister is in the middle of retelling a story with full Broadway flourishes, arms windmilling as the crowd eggs her on.

Mikey sees Ash, relief blooming across his face, and he waves like he’s being rescued. Not from drowning, but from the kind of slow, public suffocation only family can conjure.

Ash sidles up, plucks the Gatorade from the counter and raises it in salute. ''Didn't want to show up empty-handed,'' he says, holding it out.

Mikey grins. ''It's what every charcuterie board needs: electrolytes.'' He twists off the cap and takes a dramatic guzzle. For a second, blue clings to the rim of his mouth, and Ash has to look away before the urge to laugh or, God, just touch him, becomes visible.

Mikey's sister swoops in, wild-eyed and with the windburn of inherited mischief. ''You must be Ash,'' she says, sizing him up with theatre-kid zeal. ''I'm Chloe. You like brie?'' She doesn't wait for an answer, just steers both of them to where cheese has been arranged in the shape of a question mark. The dot at the bottom is a single, troubled grape. Chloe grins, daring him to comment.

''Avant-garde,'' Ash says. ''I respect the commitment.''

Chloe beamed. ''Mikey said, you were fast. He didn't say 'you were funny.'' She winks at her brother, then pirouettes away on a mission to convert a vegan.

The noise is less oppressive here than at the charity ball, filtered by plywood walls and the weight of shared history. Mikey watches Ash survey the scene, the animal wariness giving way, just a little, to curiosity. He leans in, using the Gatorade bottle as a laser pointer to identify notable hazards: ''That’s my old band teacher, who used to hide vodka in the supply closet. That’s my cousin Will. He bit two people in kindergarten and never stopped being proud about it. The guy in the shirt with the lobsters? No one knows who invited him.''

Ash listens, nods, sipping the Gatorade and letting the sugar rush push away some of the jangling instinct in his bones. He’s pretty sure at least three people have already clocked him as a party crasher, and not even the guest of honor, but the smile Mikey gives him—lopsided, conspiratorial—makes it easier to pretend he belongs.

''Did you always have this many relatives?'' Ash murmurs, eyeing the crowd.

''These aren’t even the good ones,'' Mikey says. His voice is low; he stands just close enough that Ash can smell the detergent in his new-old sweater. ''Wait until birthday season. My grandmother starts drinking at four and by six, she’s asking everyone who they voted for.''

Ash chokes on Gatorade, sets it down, and braces his hand on the edge of the counter. ''And you survived.''

Mikey shrugs. ''Exposure therapy. Like I said.''

Ash can’t recall a time he’s ever been this at ease so quickly. He lets his hand drift to the side as Mikey leans past to point at someone else, their wrists knocking together for a beat too long before either of them moves. The static is now a current.

Mikey’s tour ends at the living room, where a crowd is clustered around a battered copy of Pictionary and a nearly-empty bottle of wine dyed pink by frozen berries. ''This happens every time,'' Mikey mutters. ''Even numbers, someone gets dragged from the kitchen.''

Ash looks at him. ''Are you asking me to join the noble struggle?''

''I’m offering you a preview of hell.''

Ash shrugs. ''I’ve worked in retail. I can handle this.''

Chloe is fast—she shouts ''Ash is playing!'' before he can backout, and the circle widens to admit him, everyone rearranging with the practiced choreography of people who have been fighting for couch space since they were children. Chloe throws him a marker with a flourish; Ash catches it one-handed, and the room cheers like they've just witnessed a minor miracle.

Mikey claims the cushion next to Ash, tucking a knee up between them. The rest of the group—faces Ash recognizes only from quick study, or not at all—begins arguing about rules before the game even starts. There's a whiteboard propped against a stack of textbooks, and Ash wonders, not for the first time, if all parties are just different flavors of group therapy.

Chloe insists on girls vs. boys, then betrays the alliance immediately by drafting Mikey for her team. ''He cheats,'' she says by way of explanation, and shoulders him playfully. ''He's got one of those memories,'' she adds to Ash, as if this were both an asset and a threat.

Mikey tips his head, opens his mouth to object, then closes it. ''Guilty,'' he concedes, but his eyes flick to Ash with the kind of grin that turns guilt into invitation. Ash tries to match it but mostly feels his face do something lopsided and new.

The first few turns, Ash hangs back and lets the game happen around him: Chloe’s cartoonish flourishes, a mustachioed uncle’s competitive barking, the way Mikey’s lines are always too delicate, as if he’s worried about hurting the paper. When it’s Ash’s turn, he draws a coffin for ''rest in peace,'' and the room erupts into knowing cackles. Chloe doubles over, slapping her knee, and Mikey just shakes his head, grinning like he’s chosen the right wolf to introduce to his nervous sheep.

By the second bottle of wine, the game has devolved to free association: someone shouts ''draw your deepest regret,'' and Chloe uncorks a scrawl so violently abstract it circles back to a masterpiece. Mikey, tipsy now, is giggling at something Ash is trying to diagram — a vending machine with a single, lonesome burrito inside it. He keeps bumping Ash’s elbow by ''accident,'' which probably is, but only in the way that most accidents are just wishes in disguise.

The party is a warm, low-lit blur. At some point someone puts on a playlist of nineties alternative and the room blooms into song, off-key and collective. Ash watches Mikey belt the chorus with all the sincerity of a man at confession. He wonders if maybe, for the first time since he can remember, he’s found a crowd that doesn’t want anything except his company, his laughter, and, occasionally, his questionable taste in Gatorade color.

By midnight, the cheese question mark has collapsed, the berry wine has turned three shades darker than its original intent, and the crowd is haloed with that particular comfort only possible when nobody is trying too hard. Ash and Mikey drift out onto the half-balcony, escaping the crush. From here, the city lies below: smeared sodium streetlights, rivers of headlamps flocking the arteries of the blocks, their own breath roaming in the sharp air.

Mikey is wrapped in a blanket, a ridiculous thing covered in doughnut patterns, but his cheeks glow with real heat. He’s halfway through a story about a childhood summer spent in a tent behind his grandmother’s house, and something about the way he talks—the easy digressions, the sudden surges of shyness—makes Ash want to stand perfectly still, so he doesn’t risk shifting the moment off its axis.

''…so anyway, I hid in the tent for two days, eating Pop-Tarts and reading Calvin & Hobbes. My parents called Animal Control, and when they found me I’d convinced myself I’d been orphaned and needed to traverse the continent on foot. It was devastating, truly. Also, I peed in a Ziplock bag because I didn’t want to face coyotes or my dad.'' He tips his head, checking Ash for signs of judgment.

''Resourceful,'' Ash says, meaning it. ''Those Ziplocks are tougher than most dads. And coyotes.''

The wind tunnels from the east, tugging loose ends of the doughnut blanket, and Ash hugs his arms tight, wishing he’d brought a jacket or, failing that, the confidence to ask for a share of the blanket. Mikey reads the want, or maybe just the cold, and shifts six inches closer so their knees knock.

Below them, headlights skim the wet asphalt. Above, clouds band the moon into fractured shards.

''I was always running off,'' Mikey says after a beat. ''For someone who hates being alone, I spent a lot of time hiding.'' He laughs, but it’s a tired sound—less punchline, more receipt.

Ash shakes his head. ''You don’t seem like the hiding type.''

''That’s the trick. Hide in plain sight. Make your own camouflage.'' Mikey’s grin is a small, sly thing. ''I went to prom in a banana suit. Everyone thought it was a bit. Really, I just couldn’t afford a tux.''

Ash pictures this, young Mikey shrinking himself inside yellow foam, eyes darting above the fruit like a meerkat. The image is so vivid he wants to reach through the intervening years and steady the kid’s elbow. ''Who’d you go with?''

''No one. That was the other part of the joke.'' The wind scrapes Mikey’s hair across his forehead; he pushes it back, then lets his hand linger, as if covering an invisible bruise.

They say nothing for a while, standing in the sideways light. ''I’m messing with you, Ash. I didn’t go to prom…I got bullied… a lot.'' Mikey sighed quietly. ''But you probably guessed,'' Mikey says, not quite shrinking, more curling into the blanket's orbit, self-deprecating and defiant at once. ''Everyone thinks they invent being a misfit, but mostly you just inherit it at birth. Some people are minted for parties. Some people are the punchline.''

Ash closes the gap between their bodies, not by calculation but by a gravity as impassive as falling. He rests his elbows on the balcony rail, shoulder pressing into Mikey’s, a point of contact so casual it almost vibrates with intent.

''For what it’s worth,'' Ash says, ''I didn’t go either. Pawned the ticket, ditched school, spent the night eating gas station sandwiches by the canal.'' He thinks about how unimpressive that sounds, how it’s probably worse than banana suits and hiding from imaginary coyotes, but Mikey makes a noise—a huff of real joy.

''I knew it,'' Mikey says. ''You were always a little outlaw.''

Ash grins, his teeth white against the dusk, and something in his face gets suddenly soft around the edges. ''I was a disaster,'' he says, ''but a consistent one. I respected that about myself.''

They stand together, tucked in the chilly margin of the balcony while the party thrums on behind them, both pretending that their knees haven't found the rhythm of bumping together every few seconds.

Mikey pulls the blanket tighter, fighting the wind, and for an instant it’s all the excuse Ash needs: he tugs the edge of the doughnut fleece, half-invitation, half-dare. When Mikey lets him, shifting the blanket so it covers them both at the shoulders, Ash feels a ridiculous rush of pride—like some secret, ancient contest has ended in a draw.