Page 70 of For Never & Always

Even two months ago, the idea that he might never escape from Carrigan’s Christmasland would have sent him into a panic spiral. Instead, he replied with the Team Carrigan’s motto. “Ride or die.”

The next day, Levi flew into Charleston, where Tara and Cole lived, at lunchtime. He stopped at an old friend’s restaurant before he went to Tara’s. His excuse for this was that he didn’t want to show up empty-handed, but actually he would never miss a chance to pick up a fried green tomato sandwich.

He expected some drama on Cole’s part, given that he was being kidnapped, but all Cole did was grab the bag of takeout from Levi’s hands, say, “Oh thank God,” and go to pack his bag.

Tara looked him up and down, laughed, and shook her head, her perfect blonde bob swinging. “You’re Hannah’s kryptonite, huh?”

“I would have said Hannah was mine, but I’m certainly Hannah’s something.”

“Well, good.” She nodded, her Southern accent like molasses. “You look like you’re made out of pure unadulterated chaos, and she needs a little. Hurt her again and I’ll fuck you up.”

“What is it with Miriam dating women who threaten to kill me?” he groused.

“Miriam has impeccable taste,” she said before disappearing back into her office.

“You have a lovely home!” he called back after her. Cole dragged him out to the car and didn’t stop dragging him until they were at the airport. Levi was no longer sure who was kidnapping whom.

“So,” Cole said as they stood in line at an eerie airport coffee shop that was the kind of liminal space where you felt your very selfhood floating away, “you and Hannah are back together.”

Everything Cole said was alarming, generally. His exuberance, seeming omniscience, and closeness with everyone Levi loved made him constantly disarming. This pronouncement, his knowing about Levi and Hannah when even they weren’t sure, was not necessarilymorealarming than anything else Cole had ever said to him in their short acquaintance. But, under the unnerving fluorescents of the airport, it somehow felt like Cole might have been inside his brain.

He turned to look at Cole, who shrugged happily.

“You’re less green around the gills than the last time I saw you,” Cole said. “And you keep smiling to yourself. I got the impression you’re not often pleased about whatever’s in your brain.”

Levi thought about this. It wasn’t surprising that his demeanor had changed, and he wondered that his mom hadn’t noticed, although maybe she was keeping it close to her chest. She was wily.

“If it doesn’t work out, will you get a divorce?” Cole asked nonchalantly as he bit into a bear claw.

“You know that you don’t have to run full background checks on everyone you know, right?” Levi pointed out.

“Don’t I?” Cole replied, the world’s most affable master criminal. “How else will I know how to help my friends, Levi?” He wiped the donut off his face and winked.

“You can call me Blue, if you want,” Levi grumbled.

“No, I never knew Blue. I am happy to be friends with Levi.”

Who was this guy?

“I do have a question, though,” Cole said once they were seated, stretching his legs all the way out in the airport chair that was way too small for his frame.

“Sure,” Levi replied, giving in to the force of nature that was Nicholas Fraser III.

Cole put his hands behind his head, the wingspan of his elbows stretching out improbably far. “What are you going to do if you stay together? You’re happier out in the world, from what Miriam has told me, than you ever were before.”

“Except for the whole not having my wife thing, which truly and profoundly sucks,” Levi pointed out.

“Sure,” Cole conceded. “I’ve never been in love but that sounds like an impediment to happiness. But like…are you going to move home? Let your parents retire and move into their apartments, and live at Carrigan’s for the rest of your life? Do you want to be head chef at Carrigan’s? Didn’t you run away from your entire life to avoid that?”

Levi wouldn’t have had this conversation with anyone he knew better, and maybe not in any place more tethered to time and space, but somehow here with Cole it felt reasonable to have a calm, logistical conversation, about the fate of the entire rest of his life, with a near-stranger.

“Hannah won’t seriously consider being back together until we figure that out, but I’m worried there’s not a good answer. What the girls are doing with Carrigan’s All Year isverycool, and I honestly think it’s something I would be proud to be a part of, but living at Carrigan’s again? The thought gives me hives.”

“Look,” Cole told him, “as a person so adept at avoiding my own feelings that I didn’t realize I was gay until I was thirty-five, I empathize with this level of refusal to deal with reality. But I do recommend you maybe think critically about this.”

Cole toasted him with his coffee cup, then proceeded to give an unprompted lesson on how Levi should deal with being famous on the internet, which apparently he was an expert in because he was beloved by Miriam’s fandom, the Bloomers. He talked without breathing, through boarding, takeoff, the flight, landing, deplaning, and getting from the airport to the train station.

On the train into Advent from Manhattan, Levi had been worn down enough by Cole’s relentless cheer to attempt his own foray into connection, opening with“So, I didn’t know you were gay.”

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