Page 21 of Sugar

“It would be cool to take a rocket to Jupiter,” Juno mused as he drew a little planet beside the name. “Can we do that?”

“It takes five and a half years to get into Jupiter’s orbit,” Piper said.

Juno let out a low whistle. “That would be a long vacation.”

With a laugh, Piper shrugged. “Yeah, sugar. It would be. But hey, maybe we’ll be alive for the first leisure travel, hmm?”

“Would you go?”

“If I had incentive and didn’t have to go alone.” He winked, and Juno flushed. “Add the northern lights on your list too.”

Juno obeyed, adding the lights in bold block letters beneath the two planets. He put the cap back on and tapped his lip. “Sunset over the ocean?”

“West Coast,” Piper reminded him. He put his blinker on when the GPS directed him to the turn, and Juno could see the burrito stand sign in the distance. “I wouldn’t mind going. My brother would be happy to see me.”

Juno’s heart clenched in his chest. “What would he think of me?”

Piper’s brow furrowed as he considered the question. Then his lips twitched the way they did when he was holding back a laugh. Juno didn’t see that expression on him often, but the more time they spent together, the more familiar it was getting. It made his chest warm with happiness.

“What do you think of Xena?”

Juno sat up straighter. “The OG lesbian queen? I stan.”

Piper threw his head back with a laugh. “And Superman or Batman?”

Juno scoffed. “I’m not a comics guy, but Batman’s basically just Elmo Musk or whatever his fucking name is, if he was allowed to murder people and call it vigilante justice. Besides, Superman was Christopher Reeve, Henry Cavill, and Tyler Hoechlin. Batman doesn’t have shit on him, and I’m sorry if your brother hates me for that.”

Piper’s grin looked like it was going to split his face in two. He pulled into a parking spot, threw the car in park, then grabbed Juno by the chin and kissed him fiercely. “He’s going to love you. But it wouldn’t matter either way. I’d like you even if you chose the murdering billionaire.”

They ate inside the little shop, taking a table by the window, and Juno got full on the free chips and salsa before his food came. Piper laughed at him, but he didn’t hesitate when Juno complained about wanting a foil wrap to take it with him. He just smiled and leaned over the table, kissing him freely like he didn’t give a shit who was watching.

Juno basked in it. He closed his eyes partway through wrapping his burrito and did most of it by feel. It made his stomach hurt with anxiety, but not as badly as it did when he was trying to frost cupcakes blind.

He could feel Piper’s silence, though. It was heavy.

“Sorry.” Juno opened his eyes and blinked against the blind spot. He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop wishing for a miracle—for the doctor to have been wrong. For it to just go away. Instead, he was pretty sure it had gotten a little bigger.

“Don’t be sorry. I get it.”

“I just…I don’t know. I feel like I need to practice—to be ready if—when—it happens.”

Piper said nothing. He reached over and took Juno’s food, setting it into the paper bag along with a fresh order of the chips and salsa to take with them. His face was drawn, and Juno wondered if he was going to get tired of him being such a fucking downer.

He could fuck the melancholy out of Juno, that much he’d proven, but it wasn’t lasting. Eventually, reality would settle in, and Juno’s panic would return.

He picked at a loose bit of plastic around the edge of the table. “I might have to get a cane.”

“You get lessons for those, right?”

Juno shrugged. There were all the brochures from his doctor he hadn’t looked at. There were websites in case he procrastinated so long that by the time he got around to it, he wouldn’t be able to read them. He wondered how many patients were like him.

“Want me to do some research for you?”

Juno looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“Because having this big, looming thing hanging over you is hard enough to process. When you have to educate yourself while you’re trying to deal with it, you’re not going to retain as much as you need. Phoenix was the one who looked up my condition, and the treatments, and my prognosis.”

“Phoenix?”

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