novelxo Good Behavior: Chapter 8
When we told our friends back in Waco we were moving into a bunkhouse to save money and pay down our college loans, we were met with, at best, skepticism.
“Aren’t bunkhouses full of dark wood paneling, long musty hallways, and uncomfortable bunk beds?”
Levy sent them pictures of our setup, and all that nonsense went away.
I do have to admit that Charlie pulled out all the stops with this place. From the moment you walk in, a great room encompasses a generous living area, reading nooks, a spacious dining area, and a completely tricked-out kitchen. There are two wings on either side, with bathrooms at each entrance, plus a half-bath just off the house’s main entrance.
Since Levy, Ant, and I were the first to stay here, Charlie’s allowed us leeway with the decorations. Levy tends toward bright abstract pieces, and I tend toward muted modernist art. The combination, along with our combined love of far too many plants, gives the place a welcoming vibe.
At least, I hope it does.
“Are you actually sweating?” Levy asks as I take the roast chicken with potatoes and carrots out of the oven.
Ant told me Ignacio doesn’t like fish, so I left off the fish course, which is a shame. I may have to work with him on that.
“Bram?”
Fuck. Pay attention, Abraham.
Turning to my brother, I point out, “Somebody left the living room a mess, and I had to spend an extra hour cleaning.”
“Are you actually nervous about Nacho joining us?”
“No. But Nacho has never been to a family dinner, and I want him to get the full experience,” I explain, ignoring Levy’s thoughtful expression.
“Well, I’m sorry for the mess. I would’ve pitched in if I realized we were making more of a to-do about it.”
He eyeballs the table as he says this, his point pretty obvious. While we always have a nice layout, I may have gone a tiny bit overboard with a new tablecloth, placemats, and chargers. And maybe a few of the slightly fancier candles added to the center of the table.
“Wait. Are we doing an actual Shabbat dinner?”
“Of course not. I just want it to be nice.”
Levy and I were raised in a more humanist tradition. Our parents never took us to temple, save for very special occasions. But no matter how poor we were, they always did a big Friday night dinner, adjusted to our family’s beliefs and customs. It was a tradition neither of us wanted to abandon, even as we had to contemplate life after the accident.
We generally don’t talk to other people about the car accident that took our parents away from us. We’d been coming home from a family vacation, another little tradition of ours. Even though Levy and I were college men at that point, we loved the camping trips we’d take right before the beginning of the fall semester.
Levy and I survived. Our parents didn’t. Life is shitty that way sometimes.
At first, I thought continuing the tradition of a big Friday meal would seem silly or extra, especially since Levy and I are anything but religious. But no. This feels like a way to remember them, and it’s a weekly reminder of the love that always permeated our family home.
Anyway, it’s just Nacho. I don’t know why I’m so nervous about everything being perfect.
Ant joins us and lets out a whistle.
“Ooh, we’re going all out for our guest tonight. I guess the rest of us are chopped liver, not deserving of the fancy place settings.”
“Oh please. We’ve always had beautiful place settings, and we’ll use these going forward.”
He winks at me, nudging my side with his sharp elbow. “I know. I’m just giving you a hard time because you’ve been a nervous hen, making sure everything is perfect.”
Heat creeps up my neck, but I shut it down. I don’t know what it is they think they’re saying. I just want to make sure our guest is comfortable.
Speaking of the devil, there’s a knock at the door.
“Come on in,” Ant yells, and I find his loudness irritating.
Hrn. I may have let myself get a tiny bit worked up over this. I bite my lower lip as Ignacio walks through the front door.
Oh, my good boy.
He followed my instructions to a T, stunning in tight, perfectly worn-in dark-wash jeans with a crisp white button-down and a sharp charcoal vest fitted closely to his trim frame. His sleeves are meticulously rolled to his elbows, revealing enticing tattoos and veins. His hair is artfully mussed with pomade, and a cheeky little swoop highlights the glossy black strands. Pausing in the entryway, he toes out of his high-end loafers to reveal pretty argyle socks that pick up on the white, indigo, and gray of his outfit.
Ant grins and goes up to him, giving him a hug. “Welcome! You’re gonna love it. Bram makes the best roast chicken I’ve ever had in my entire life. We have it every week, and I never get tired of it.”
His praise makes the heat rise again, and Levy’s eyes fall to my roasted cheeks. He raises his brow, brother-speak for we’ll talk about this later.
Not if I have any say about it.
“That’s kind of you, Ant,” I say. “And Ig…Nacho, you look very handsome this evening.”
He acknowledges me with a confident smile and shy eyes as he holds up two bottles of wine.
“That’s so generous of you. You didn’t need to buy two bottles.”
He shakes his head. “One of these is a nonalcoholic sparkling dark grape. I looked up Shabbat dinners and wasn’t sure if you did anything with the wine or not.”
“How thoughtful.” I take them from him, noting that the alcoholic one is kosher. I show Levy, and we both smile.
“Should I chill these?”
“The guy at the store said to serve them at room temperature. Though—uh, did I choose the right one? I mean, for you guys?”
Levy chuckles. “Actually, I’m pretty sure it’ll be the only thing on the table that’s truly kosher. Which would make our mother very happy.”
My eyes track the nervous bobbing of Nacho’s Adam’s apple, and it makes me want to settle him, give him something to do to get him out of his head. Levy would definitely pick up on that, so instead, I usher him into the dining room just as Biyu quietly joins us, with Smokey as her little white shadow.
We’d all practiced with our translator apps before her first Friday night dinner with us, but then she begged us to stop trying to hold a conversation with her. Something her human translator eventually translated to, “Americans are too loud at dinner.”
Probably true.
Anyway, she seems okay to eat quietly with us as background noise, which I still view as a win.
Now that we’re all assembled, we stand around the table and, nervous, I begin the dinner the way I always do.
“Now that the sun has gone down and the work is done, we welcome a day of rest and the chance to appreciate all the good things of this week.”
I turn to Nacho. “We go around the table and say one good thing that’s happened this week, one thing we appreciate, and one thing we are leaving behind. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to.”
“I would love to participate,” he says quickly. Grimacing, he continues, “I don’t know if I’ll say the right thing, but I would love to participate.”
“Then we’ll go first, and you can see the kind of things we say. Would that be helpful?”
He nods, and I pat his back, wishing for so much more. His chest rises, and I linger for as long as I dare.
As is the Barlowe family custom, we start with the youngest person. Since Biyu doesn’t like to use the translation app at the dinner table, she emails her three things to her translator in advance, who sends them to me, and I read them aloud to the table.
Pulling up my phone, I read, “I slept through the night without nightmares. I appreciate Levy for finding the candy from home that I like, and I’m leaving behind—”
I stop, my voice catching in my throat. Biyu looks up, and I point to the part I’m translating. She quickly—so quickly—touches her chest, then refocuses on her plate.
“Uh. I’m leaving behind despair. I choose to hope that I will see my family again.”
My voice cracks a little at the end, and Levy squeezes my hand.
“Xiè xiè, Biyu,” I manage, thanking her as best I can.
“Xiè xiè,” Levy and Ant say to a modest smile from her.
She hates being the center of attention, so I’m grateful when Ant goes in with his three for the week.
“I got a free chocolate croissant and fancy coffee after I stood up for myself. I appreciate that we had a nice customer earlier this week, and I’m going to leave behind the resentment I feel about not being made a part of Justin and Charlie’s wedding.”
“Thank you for sharing,” Levy and I say in unison.
“Uh, thank you for sharing,” Nacho says, clearing his throat.
Levy is next. “My good thing is I started writing lessons at the community center. I appreciate that the guy giving the writing lessons is a hot silver fox.” He leers, then admits, “Even though he is married.”
Levy has a thing for silver foxes.
“And I am leaving behind my resentment that Ant took the last of the chocolate milk and didn’t write it on the grocery list.”
Ant grimaces. “Sorry.”
Levy sends him a wink. “No problem, little brother.”
“Thank you for sharing,” we all say, Nacho joining us this time.
My offering is next. “I had a breakthrough with a patient this week. I appreciate her willingness to work so hard even though we had to cover some really tough ground.”
Ant and Levy glance at Biyu, correctly guessing the patient I am speaking of.
“And I am leaving behind the desire to murder the person responsible for her pain.”
A nervous laugh goes around the room, but they say to me, “Thank you for sharing.”
“Damn,” Nacho says, laughing. “I thought therapists were supposed to be neutral.”
Levy and I share a look and laugh.
Levy explains, “We’re supposed to appear neutral for our clients, but we can feel however we’re gonna feel.”
“Gotcha.”
Nacho’s eyes catch mine for a split second before he looks away.
“Okay, Nacho. It’s your turn if you’re comfortable.”
“Thank you, uh, Bram,” he says, clearing his throat. “Um, my good thing is that I got invited to this dinner. I appreciate being included, and I am leaving behind the fact that Topo Chico is not the same as beer.”
A gentle laugh goes around the table, and Nacho flushes when we say, “Thank you for sharing.”
I will email Biyu’s translator with each of our three things at the end of the evening, and I make a note to include Nacho’s three things too.
I lean into him a little. “Was that okay?”
He looks around the table. “Yeah. This is…this is amazing. I had never heard of this kind of dinner before you invited me.”
“You’re welcome to join us every Friday.”
He flushes again. “I’d like that.”
I go around the table and pour the wine and the sparkling grape for Nacho. We toast to setting down our responsibilities and resting, then I slice the chicken as everyone sits. I serve Levy the quarter leg and Ant a wing and half a chicken breast, with Biyu getting the other half.
Looking at Nacho, I ask, “What part of the chicken do you like?”
“Uhh…I kind of like everything. Just get what you like, and I’ll take whatever’s left.”
“That wasn’t the question, Nacho. Tell me what part of the chicken you would like.”
“Um,” he blinks, and I’m grateful Ant and Levy don’t notice the tension between us. Biyu, however, spares us a quick glance.
“Yes?”
“I, uh, like the leg and wing the best.”
“Perfect,” I say, slicing through the chicken easily, then placing them on his plate. “I’m going to also give you some chicken breast since this is a smaller bird tonight.”
“Thank you, Dr. Barlowe.”
Ant snorts. “Dr. Barlowe? Nah, we call him Bram. Or asshole.”
I point the knife at Ant. “I wasn’t the one who drank all the chocolate milk.”
He holds up his hands. “Okay. Note to self: don’t drink all the chocolate milk.”
“Or,” Levy says, perfectly reasonable, “we buy more so there is enough chocolate milk for the week.”
“Or we do that,” I say, taking the thigh and the rest of the chicken breast.
We dive into the food, and I’m relieved the conversation flows easily. I should have known Nacho would fit in perfectly and that all my stress about making this good for him was for nothing.
It wasn’t even that hard to think of him as Nacho. He is a gracious and handsome guest, and when we finish at the table, he helps put away the food and the dishes.
When he retrieves Biyu’s plate, she flinches at the unexpected closeness. The three of us freeze, having seen Biyu have a strong emotional reaction to triggering events. Nacho, however, smoothly bows his head and steps back. His immediate respect for her space neutralizes her fear, and she thanks him with a slight bow of her own.
Biyu returns to her room with Smokey, and we retire to the den for a game of cards and more conversation. Finally, Ant yawns and goes down the hallway leading to our three bedrooms.
Nacho gets up, heading toward the front door. “I’m just gonna use the bathroom real quick before I take off.”
“No problem,” I say, gathering the rest of the cups while Levy puts away the cards.
Levy angles off to his room, and I wait for Nacho outside the guest bathroom. Not expecting me, Nacho runs straight into my chest as he exits.
“Shit. Sorry, Dr. Barlowe.”
I do love it when he calls me that.
“No need to apologize. You weren’t expecting me.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “Thanks again for inviting me. This was just what I needed, and I’m looking forward to next Friday.”
“Excellent. Did you wash your hands?”
He looks back to the bathroom, confused. “Uh, yeah?”
“Good,” I say, fastening the buttons on his vest he’d undone after dinner. “Hygiene is important.”
His chest rises and falls beneath my fingers.
“Yes, Dr. Barlowe. The cons sometimes made fun of me, but good hygiene prevented me from getting sick in jail.”
Straightening his primly buttoned collar, I nod. “You take such excellent care of yourself, Ignacio. Tell me, what is your supplement regimen?”
Before he can answer, I interrupt him, reaching for his shoulder. “Here, stand up straight.”
He faithfully follows the direction of my hands.
“Thank you, Dr. Barlowe.”
“You’re welcome, Ignacio. Proper posture is so important for spinal health. Though, I apologize. You were about to tell me what supplements you take.”
“I—I don’t take supplements.”
I let my disappointment show, and he lowers his head.
“I will bring you a multivitamin next week.”
“Dr. Barlowe, you don’t need to do that,” he protests. “I can buy myself a multivitamin.”
“I insist. It will make me feel better.”
“Of course. I’ll do whatever you want, Dr. Barlowe.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering if that’s an invitation to do more.
“Thank you again for coming, Ignacio. Be safe on your way home.”
“Yes, Dr. Barlowe,” he says, opening the door.
As he makes his way down the stairs, I step onto the porch, unable to help myself.
“Ignacio—”
He turns to face me. “Yes, Dr. Barlowe?”
“You were a very good boy this evening.”
His chest rises sharply as he slowly raises his eyes to mine.
“Thank you, Dr. Barlowe. I’m glad I could be good for you.”
With that, he quickly gets into the truck and puts on his seat belt, avoiding my eyes as he backs out and turns toward the gate.
I close the door and carefully bash my forehead against the solid wood.
What am I doing?