Page 22 of Love in Focus

I carefully pick up Burrito from the floor. He lets out a small, indignant mew.

“Don’t worry, kitty cat,” I say. “I’ll bust you out of the room as soon as we’re done eating.”

As cute as Burrito is, he has a very naughty habit of stealing human food. Whenever we lock him up, he instantly goes from being “a manly, absolute unit” of a cat—Val’s words, of course—to, as Kiara says, “just a baby!” Puss in Boots wide eyes and all. I try my best to ignore his sad little mews as I put him in the bedroom.

After I close the door behind me, I join Kiara at the dining room table. Val comes soon after with our plates and exits out of the music streaming app on her PS5. She sits down at the head of the table. Kiara sits at her right, while I sit at her left. It’s the same seating arrangement we’ve been following for the last month or so, and it’s been pretty great. Especially now that I’m paying my share of the rent—I Venmo’ed Val and Kiara while I was back in Irvine—my friends’ apartment feels like a second home now.

When we’re all settled, my friends wordlessly turn to me with expectant faces.

I take a deep breath and finally say, “I was with Celeste.”

“Your ex?” Kiara asks, while Val says, “I thought she was in Korea!”

“She apparently moved back to LA a while ago,” I reply. “Which, I had no idea about until now.”

“But how did you run into her here in SF, of all places?” Val asks.

“Apparently she goes back and forth between the two cities a lot for jobs. Remember that photographer from my school? The oneHorizonhired for the Valentine’s Day issue?”

Kiara gasps. “No.”

“Yup. It turned out to be her.”

Kiara shrieks, and Val gives me a pleased smirk.

“This is basically destiny!” Kiara says. “A match made in heaven by Sappho herself. When can we meet her? We can go on double dates!”

I fling out my hands in front of me before she can go on. This is exactly why I didn’t tell my friends about Celeste sooner. The last time I saw Kiara this excited was when Val surprised her with tickets to go see Megan Thee Stallion for her birthday.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say. “Just because we’re working together doesn’t mean we’re going to date. She disappeared on me for eight years. And even if wewerestill interested in each other… we have to keep things professional for work.”

Val gives me a much-deserved eyebrow raise. “Professional? Is that why you got shitfaced with her?”

I sigh. “I know, I know. I wanted to set clear boundaries and expectations. But that meant we had to talk about the past… and then I got so stressed out, I got blackout drunk for the first time in years! Which is why I stayed over at her place afterward.”

Kiara looks like she’s about to scream again, so I quickly add, “Butshe slept on the couch. She did make me Korean hangover soup for breakfast but—”

“She made you breakfast!” Kiara gestures at our now lukewarm plates of food, and I realize it’s game over. Nothing I say now will convince her that Celeste and I will never date again, because to Kiara, breakfast equals love. And I guess in a way, that’s true for her and Val and probably many other couples, too. But not when it comes to me and Celeste.

“Well, I’m surprised you even came back home today,” Val says with a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what they say about lesbians and U-Hauls.”

At my confused expression, she goes on, “Come on, you know, that one stereotype about how us sapphics move so fast in relationships that we move in together after the second date or something? Which, I mean, isn’t exactly wrong considering…”

She gives a pointed look in Kiara’s direction, and we all laugh.

“Oops,” Kiara says with a grin. “Sorry not sorry.”

Val gives her a light peck on the cheek before taking a bite out of her eggs. “Shit,” she says, “the food is already cold.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I had a lot to catch you guys up on.”

“Don’t apologize for that,” Kiara replies, waving me off. “We can reheat everything.”

We form an assembly line from the table to the microwave,with Kiara handing each plate of food to me and me handing it off to Val so she can reheat it. As I wait for the food to warm up, I recall how baffled I’d been when, just a week after the three of us had met for the first time at the company mixer, Kiara and Val told me that they were dating. By the end of that same month, Kiara had posted on socials that she was looking for someone to sublease her room in her apartment so she could go live with Val, her new girlfriend.

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