“HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
“Ohmygod.”
“Happy birthday, dear Cyrus, happy birthday to you.”
Cody’s excitement is infectious, his crooked smile contrasted with his darker skin. He extends the verse beyond what it necessary and I feel myself blushing, the way the heat stings my cheeks.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Hey, I never asked you, what’s with the name ‘Cyrus’? It’s not fully ordinary. Not that you are fully ordinary. Is it a family name?”
“My mom came up with it.”
Mom had a friend in college named Cyrus who was sweet and shy and died an unfortunate death, which is not a good legacy to put onto a child, but the way she told it made it sound better, like he was her angel who protected her from the men she dated at the time—“I didn’t have the best filter,” she said—and this big bear of a friend called Cyrus rescued her “more than once,” which again, now that I tell Cody is not something I should know about my mother, but I kind of like my name.
“You’re glowing. There’s a smile around your face.”
“Do you miss her?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, dipping my eyes, my cheeks still red. “Every day.”
“I get that,” Cody says. “I don’t know how I would function without my mother.”
He’s lounging on a gray felt sofa near the entrance to his bedroom, a new addition to the attic because his mom’s redecorating on the first floor. One time Cody took me on a FaceTime tour of his house, which is about the same size as my house but way nicer—there’s an entire wall of glass at the entrance to the “parlor,” not something we have in Pennsylvania. His living room is off to one side, the walls decorated with books, like Mom used to line up in massive piles in her closet, to fill a bookcase we never had. I haven’t given Cody a tour of Casa de Dunn yet.
“Not that I’m even comparing it to your situation,” Cody says. “But when I go to my dad’s house for the weekend, I call her twenty times because I forgot something or I need something or—” He leans forward and whispers. “I just want to hear her voice.”
“Awww,” I say. “You’re glowing.”
“Screw you, Cyrus,” Cody says, and he holds it for half a second before he breaks. He’s thin—almost as thin as me—but his cheeks are fuller, or longer, and he has dimples even when he isn’t smiling, the sun bright through the skylight above his head. Like always.
“What did you do para tu cumpleaños?” he asks.
“That’s ‘birthday,’ right?”
He nods. Dallastown Spanish III coming on strong.
“Well, Mindy and Sharane, they found out it was my, ‘cumpleaños,’” I say, screwing up the accent but Cody lets it slide. “So they snuck into the teachers’ lounge for candles and placed them on a packaged cake from the vending machines. They sang ‘happy birthday’ in the middle of the cafeteria. Super loud and annoying.”
“Ahh, that’s sweet.”
“It was mortifying.”
I’m still dressed in my cross-country practice clothing—off-brand blue wicking T-shirt and short running shorts, not as short as some of the others on the team with their boxer briefs showing the whole time. Not sure why I’m thinking of underwear.
“And what’s going on tonight, you having a party?”
Cody’s wearing his white soccer shirt, stained with grass around the collar line—“slide-tackle,” he said, and he’s got a scruff of dirt above his cheek on the left side, visible when he shifts on the sofa and the sun catches him beneath the eye.
“Not exactly,” I say.
Dad is on his way back from California and he’s bringing Shake Shack with him—my favorite restaurant even though the closest one is all the way in Philly. I’ve been salivating ever since he called me from the airport.
“Why are you laughing?”
“There’s a Shake Shack two miles from my house,” Cody says. “I feel like you’re so deprived out there in—what state is that—Kentucky?”
“Funny.”
“I mean, do you have tractor pulls in corn fields? I hear that’s something they do out in the ‘heartland,’” he says, air-quoting with a wink.
I don’t defend Dallastown because I will never defend Dallastown. I mean, it’s not horrible but it’s a carbon copy of all the other former farmlands between Philly and Pittsburgh, too far from both to be close to anything interesting. Dad’s engineering firm is ten minutes from our house so that’s how we ended up here, and Mom found a job at the nearest university—Penn State York. She took me there to show me her office and classroom and I didn’t think so at the time but looking back at it now, I wonder if she regretted moving out here with him.
“I wouldn’t mind visiting sometime, though,” Cody says. “There’s this guy that’s super cool and he’s already seen Manhattan Beach.”
“We were only there for one night.”
“That’s true. You should come out for more nights.”
He winks and I think to smile but I’m already smiling. We try to talk every night and I don’t know what to do with it yet—the distance between us—but I do want to visit again, to see him again. Maybe then I’d stop obsessing over Jeff.
“So I have a proposal for you, Cody Martin.”
“You want to propose?” Cody says. “I think I’m a little young to get engaged, but okay.”
I laugh.
“My proposal is that we go on a date. A virtual date.”
“That sounds awesome,” he says, not waiting for the details.
“We could dress up, you know. Not formal wear, but like date attire, and then we could FaceTime while we queue up a movie on Netflix and watch it together.”
“Awesome,” Cody says. “We can even make popcorn.”
“Kettle corn,” I say. “I prefer the kettle corn.”
“Right. Because you’re from the country.” I laugh again. “But yes, let’s do it. Some type of popped corn product and our fanciest formal wear.”
“Of course,” he says. “I mean, what I wear to church.”
“You go to church?”
“Sometimes. Mostly at Christmas,” Cody says. “Easter if my mom’s feeling particularly penitent that year.”
“Fancy word,” I say.
“For our fancy date,” he says. This is perfect.
I hear the whirring of his fan through my laptop, because the air conditioner doesn’t reach the attic, he said, and when he leans back, the tips of his hair wave in the breeze like the wheat fields on the way to Lancaster.
“When shall we do it?” he says, shifting on the sofa. “Tomorrow?”
“Oh, um, I have band practice tomorrow and we’re auditioning a new member. Does Sunday work?”
“It’s not a major holiday, is it?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then church is not a conflict.”
He licks his teeth and brushes at his cheek. The clump of dirt brushes free.
“Good, good. But I’m pretty sure the churches around here would not approve of two boys on a date, no matter how virtual.”
“Eh, I don’t think my church much cares,” he says. “This is Southern California. Being gay is almost the point.”
“Well, this is Central Pennsylvania, which not only does not have a Shake Shack but has more churches per square mile than anywhere else in the country. Even Kentucky.”
“Is that true?” he says.
I’m not sure if it’s true but I heard that it is, from several sources aware of the repressive nature of a town filled with churches.
“There’s an intersection on the way to Red Lion with a church on all four corners.”
He laughs. That part is true. I’ve ridden past many times.
“Seriously, they love their Jesus around here.”
“Well then, we’ll have to figure out a way to do some sinning on Sunday,” Cody says.
“I can’t wait,” I say. Glowing.
I must have fallen asleep after talking to Cody because I can smell the Shake Shack from my bedroom so Dad must be home. I throw on a hoodie and run to the bathroom to splash some water in my eyes because my contacts get super dry when I sleep without removing them and—
“Jeff?”
“Happy birthday, man,” he says from the bottom of the stairs.
“What the?” I say, stepping down into the living room.
Dad emerges from the kitchen with a pair of burgers on a tray, “1” and “6” candles sticking out from one of the buns. “Happy birthday to—”
“Please don’t sing.”
“Youuuuuuu,” he continues and Jeff chimes in and then they sing the entire song with insane sincerity. It’s super awkward the way I’m standing in front of them and I wish I’d checked my hair before I bounded down the stairs.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Jeff when they finish.
“Your dad invited me.”
He follows me to the dining area and I clear off space on the table. I didn’t know my dad had his number.
“I didn’t get a cake but I figured a shake would suffice,” Dad says. “Except they melted on the drive so I put them the freezer.”
“Thank you,” I say. “How was your trip?”
Dad hands us each our burgers, some napkins, and ketchup. I’ve already removed the candles and taken a bite before he can answer.
“Good. Got a lot accomplished. I’m hoping from now on, I can take an earlier flight and be home when you’re home from school on Friday.”
“Still Friday?” I say.
“Yeah,” Dad says, dipping his head. “It’ll be all week for the foreseeable future, I’m afraid.”
“You go away every week?” Jeff asks, eyeing his burger like it’s a foreign substance and not the greatest meal in the history of humanity.
“Every other week. Through Thanksgiving at least.”
“That sucks,” Jeff says. “I mean, I would freaking love if my stepfather went away every other week but it might suck for you guys.”
I laugh but Dad shows no expression. Even though I tell him all the time how much the stepfuck sucks, I guess as a parent you always have to take another parent’s side.
“On the bright side,” Jeff says, “they’re attending some church event in Hallam this weekend.”
“Really?” I say.
“Yeah. We can use the garage,” he says, eyeing the grease dripping from the burger along my palm. “What time can you come over? We need to move the equipment back.”
“I have my permitting exam at the butt crack of early but—after that?”
Jeff laughs but Dad glares before retreating upstairs to get changed out of his work clothes. He has no sense of humor. We take seats at the table.
“This is good shit,” Jeff says, taking his first bite.
“I told you.”
It’s difficult to describe the taste of a Shake Shack burger because it’s the same beef as any other burger but the way they make it, I don’t know if it’s fried in butter or lard or maybe bacon grease, but every single inch is filled with this amazing flavor unlike a regular burger—Mickey D’s or whatever homemade patty Dad grills up, where the middle is dry and overcooked or under-seasoned. Every bit of a Shake Shack burger—mine loaded with cheese and bacon and lettuce and tomato—is pure perfection. Jeff licks at his lips.
“I can’t believe I’ve never had this before,” he says, bits of bacon stuck to his chin, wet from the grease in the living room lights.
“I told you.”
He’s got on his baseball cap, the black-and-white Brixton he bought at the York Galleria at the start of the summer, before we started the band.
“I got you a present.”
“Really?”
I didn’t get him anything for his birthday but I did accompany him to the guitar store in York where he spent most of his summer earnings on our band. He hands me his phone.
“You’re giving me your phone?”
Jeff shakes his head. “Look.”
He points but the screen is blank so he uses his fingerprint to correct.
“What the hell? You got them!”
“Yes,” he says. “Two tickets. Two weeks from tomorrow. Joyce Manor, baby!”
“Holy shit,” I say.
“Yeah. It’s going to be insane.”
Two tickets to see Joyce Manor at Union Transfer in Philly and the sound of those words is the greatest present I could ever get—better than all the Shake Shack burgers in all the world. Joyce Manor is my favorite band or at least top three and I’ve never been to a concert before. With Jeff.
“You’re excited?”
I’m glowing.
“There’s one catch.”
I unfurl my lower lip.
“We need someone to drive us to Philly and back. I know there’s a train but I don’t think Union Transfer is close to the train station and it’s a pain in the ass either way. Do you think your dad would take us?”
“Maybe,” I say.
“I mean, he’s welcome to get a ticket for the show,” Jeff says. “But ideally, he’d go do something in Philly while we’re inside because I love your dad, he’s cool for a dad it’s just he’ll stick out at a Joyce Manor concert, you know. With like—” Jeff glances up the stairs to make sure Dad’s not there. “He’s old.”
“I don’t think he’d want to. His favorite band is called Superchunk. Like who calls themselves that?”
“I don’t know,” Jeff says. We still haven’t come up with a name for our band.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he says. “Sharane is coming over with Mindy tomorrow, but just to watch. She has no musical talent whatsoever. Her words.”
“When did you talk to Sharane?”
“I don’t know. Before coming over here, I guess.”
“Oh,” I say, crumpling the wrapper from my burger. The grease is stuck in my throat.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I shouldn’t hate Sharane. It’s not her fault for liking Jeff and if he likes her back, that’s his choice. He’s over the fucking kiss. And he’s still my best friend, which is all I said I wanted and I have a date with Cody on Sunday night, so that should be my focus. But I can’t get it out of my head.
“Are you dating Sharane?” I say, squeezing the wrapper in my palm.
“No,” Jeff says. “She wants to, I think.”
“And you don’t want to?”
He pauses, like he’s considering, and there’s something in the way he dips his head that makes me think he’s already considered it.
“Did you kiss her?”
“No,” he says but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He looks up the stairs again to make sure my father isn’t coming.
“Listen, Cy, I shouldn’t have sent you mixed signals with—” He hesitates again, afraid to look at me. “With what happened after the party. I don’t know why I did it. I was pretty wasted.”
I start to blink, my contacts dry enough they’re pinching at the sides.
“I’m not gay,” he says. “It’s great that you are, it is. But I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“You didn’t kiss her?” I say.
“What?”
“Did you kiss Sharane?”
“No. I told you I didn’t.”
“Do you want to?” I need to know.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”
I blink a bunch of times because I can’t actually see.
“Are you okay, Cy?” Jeff says, reaching across the table for my hand. The refrigerator clicks off with a clang. I pull away.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just—we’re not going to kiss again. I need you to be okay with that.”
Dad comes clomping down the stairs to barge into the conversation because I still can’t get privacy, even on my birthday. The contacts are slicing into my retinas.
“I got you another present,” he says, handing me the gift box he bought on his trip but I don’t even look at it, I just set it beside me.
“You want your shakes now?” Dad says. “They should be frozen.”
“Sure,” I say. Just go away.
I look into Jeff’s eyes until he meets mine.
“Cy?” he says.
“It’s okay, Jeff. Sharane can come tomorrow. It’ll be good to see her.”
I stand up and follow Dad into the kitchen, rooting through the drawers for spoons for Jeff and me.
“You okay, Cyrus?” Dad says, setting down the shakes and reaching for my arm. I shake free and shake off the moisture in my eyes. I can’t breathe.
“My contacts are just dry,” I say and return to the dining room with a forced, crooked smile, avoiding his face. If I can’t get past this, I’ll lose him.
“Their shakes are amazing too,” I say, spreading wide my fake smile.
I can’t lose my best friend.