Page 94 of Snake

“I am,” she insisted. Being told she was hurting did not make her hurt less. Denying it, on the other hand, made some room for her to climb over it. Autumn had long ago become a master at ignoring the things in her way; for the past week or so, she’d deployed all her skills to clear Daniel Cox from her path.

Pom came to her and cupped her face between his hands. “You are my beautiful, sweet, good girl. I love you better than tiramisu. I am not about to allow you to lie to me or yourself. You are not okay, and I am not leaving you alone with your not-okayness. Babydoll, you are wearing sweatpants!”

He said it like someone else might say, You are standing in diarrhea up to your waist! Autumn looked down at herself. She had on an ancient Alpha Phi t-shirt and a pair of sea-green shorts.

“They’re sweat shorts,” she corrected. “And really they’re pajamas. I wear this to bed, I don’t wear it out of the house.”

Pom crossed his arms again and popped a hip. “It is six-thirty on a weekday afternoon, Autumn Renee. Telling me you—You! You!—are still in your PJs does not ease my mind.”

Energy drained from Autumn as if a cap on the bottom of her foot had been opened. All at once, she couldn’t hold it back, could barely hold her body upright. Her knees shook, and she grabbed the counter. Pom leapt to her side and flung his arms around her, bending to her level and pushing her head to rest on his shoulder.

It was keenly reminiscent of the way Cox had rested on her for comfort, so very often during those days between his mother’s death and her funeral, and Autumn simply could not hold her heart together another second. It was stupid, to be so broken over such a small slice of her life, but right now, in Pom’s arms, she shattered.

“Okay, okay,” Pom cooed, stroking her hair as he squeezed her close. “Okay, little love. Pom-Pom is right here, and I am not going anywhere. Ever, ever, ever.”

Autumn clung to him and sobbed.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“Oh! Is this ... you got Tom Yum?”

“Sure. There’s red curry, too. We’ll probably need to heat all this up now, but—Oh! Almost forgot—there’s those curry puffs, too. They’re in the other bag.”

“Since when do you like red curry?”

“I don’t. I’m a Massaman curry girlie, just like always.”

Pops stared at Pom for a few seconds, then looked across Autumn’s condo, peering through her hanging pots to send her a curious look. “Do you like red curry now?”

Sitting cross-legged on her sofa, wrapped in the throw Pops had tucked around her after her meltdown almost an hour ago, Autumn set her laptop, on which she’d been comfort-streaming Derry Girls (also prescribed by Pom), aside. She was picking up on the same clue Pops had clocked.

“I like green curry,” she told him, and they held eye contact, letting understanding settle in.

Pom had declared Autumn’s emotional upheaval an ‘all hands on deck’ situation and called Pops over, too. Pops had dropped everything and come over. Because that was who her fathers were—they both dropped everything when the people they love had need.

Even so, to have them here together, for the second time in a week, was fairly remarkable. Though her fathers had, superficially, a stereotypically gay divorce, where they ‘remained friends,’ the real truth was Pom clung to a grudge like a buoy in the open sea. As far as Autumn knew, neither had cheated or anything like that, but it was Pops who’d wanted the split. Well, they’d both been visibly straining against their bond, but it was Pops who’d first mentioned divorce, and Pom would never forgive being forevermore The One Who Was Left.

Thus, their ‘remaining friendship’ was decidedly icy, mostly on dramatic Pom’s part, unless people were watching. They occasionally spoke on the phone, generally about Autumn, but unless she had an event like a graduation or an award, or some other reason they couldn’t celebrate the same thing with her at different times, they did not spend time in the same space.

But here they were, standing side by side in her kitchen, plating takeout Thai together, and Pops and Autumn had both realized that Pom had bought food for Pops. Not enough for Autumn to have leftovers; he’d ordered dishes only Pops liked. And he’d done so before he’d shown up here and been witness to her meltdown.

Before he’d known there might be an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, Pom had bought dinner for the three of them—all their favorites, just like the old days.

That was a freaking earthquake, and vastly more interesting than her ridiculous heartbreak over a man with whom she’d shared a single good weekend and one horrific week.

“Ginge,” Pom said, apparently unaware of the seism he’d created, “there’s no rosé in here, and no pinot grigio, either.” He closed the door to her wine cooler. “Why do you have so many bottles of chardonnay?”

With a shared blink as their gazes unlocked, Pops and Autumn tacitly agreed not to point out what they’d noticed. She unwrapped herself from the sofa and stood. “Ida loves chardonnay—and we found a really light one at a winery around Carmel. I like it, too. But there’s still a Tuscan rosé left, at the bottom, I think. Here, let me look.”

Pom and Ida both loved wine. Though she preferred harder drinks, Autumn enjoyed wine, too, and she adored wine-tasting trips with her friend and/or her dads. Thus, she kept a nice collection. Hardly a cellar, but several good bottles.

“Why isn’t Ida B. Badass in our little mix?” Pom asked, hovering over Autumn as she pulled the rosé from the cooler. “Has she been to see you since you’ve been back?”

“She’s in South America, with her students, right?” Pops answered. Pom’s head spun toward Pops, and Autumn could see him spinning up to be mad that Pops had knowledge he didn’t, but she had told him, so she jumped in before he could open his mouth.

---