Summary:
Dylan and Claire share breakfast at a familiar taqueria after an unexpected night together. Their conversation moves from light questions to personal topics, including Claire’s sexuality and Dylan’s strict upbringing. Claire reveals she once had feelings for Dylan as a teenager. Later, his sister Danielle arrives, prompting an honest discussion about past tensions and forgiveness. The three reach a tentative understanding that allows Dylan and Claire to move forward together.
Here is your Story: My Sister Helped Me Hook Up With Her Best Friend
Dylan wasn’t a big breakfast guy. But after a night of dissipation, there was nothing quite like a breakfast burrito the size of your head. No better place to get one than Rico’s Taqueria.
The taqueria had hardly changed since high school. Vibrant yellow and red walls, pine furniture hand-painted with palm trees and cacti, the world’s loudest mechanical cash register, and Norteño music blasting from the kitchen. It was Saturday morning after Valentine’s Day and the place was slammed. It took a lot of convincing to get Claire to wait for a table. He promised it would be worth it.
The weather was clear but frigid. Claire still wore her fishnet stockings and denim cutoffs from last night, but she had borrowed one of his shirts. She looked fantastic in an old Nekrogoblikon tee. With minimal makeup and tousled hair, she had a certain glow about her. A glow that said, “I just got laid, suckers.” Dylan was sure he had it too.
There were no shortage of couples in the waiting room. Some fawned over one another, sucking face, radiating the “just got laid” vibes. Others were much frostier and looked miserable to be stuck amidst the saccharine panoply. One such couple waited next to Dylan. Claire sat facing them with her legs draped over his lap.
“I’m so fucking hungry,” she said, fidgeting with his hair. “I’m passing away.”
“Just a little longer,” he assured her. “There’s a reason it’s popular.”
“You know what else is popular? McDonald’s.”
“Eww. This is better.”
She groaned. “Take me to McDonald’s right now and I’ll blow you in the drive-thru. Hell, I’ll blow you in the parking lot right here just to get something in my stomach faster.”
The woman next to Dylan cleared her throat. He patted Claire’s leg and tried not to smirk.
Getting to Know Each Other
Once they got seated and ordered, he ran interference on Claire’s stomach by asking first date questions. Silly ones at first, which gradually became more personal. Eventually they landed on the topic of sexual orientation.
“I knew really early on that I was attracted to girls,” she said, stirring her coffee with a lascivious look. “I think my first crush was Jean Grey.”
Dylan grimaced. “I don’t remember Jean. I remember Bethany Grey. Was Jean her older sister?”
“What?” Claire stared at him. “Do you seriously not know Jean Grey from the X-Men?”
“Oh, uh…” He gave her a so-so gesture.
“You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not! I swear. I never read those comics.”
“Forget the comics,” she said with a laugh. “You never saw any of those movies? Or the cartoons?”
“It’s a long story,” he warned.
“I insist you give me the abridged version.”
“Okay. My dad was an aspiring artist before he knocked up my mom. Comic books, in fact. He abandoned drawing to make steady money as an HVAC technician. Part of his personal vendetta against the world, I suppose, was forbidding us from consuming mainstream superhero narratives and related media, including mainstream contemporary animation. Eventually, popular television shows were just banned in the house because he generally hated modernity.”
Claire blinked. “…fucking what?”
“I’m one hundred percent serious. We weren’t allowed to read about superheroes, or watch them, or get the lunchboxes, none of that. Looney Tunes were something of a flashpoint thanks to Space Jam. He filled the house with, like, Gary Larson, and Krazy Kat, and Ralph Bakshi cartoons, and underground comix from the 60s and shit. Like, anything made before the Reagan administration got a pass, except for superheroes.”
“This has to be a joke.” She looked scandalized. “Your sister introduced me to Xena: Warrior Princess. The first time she got me stoned, we watched Super Friends all night.”
“Yeah, well, Xena is a lesbian icon, and our parents weren’t going to stifle Dani’s self-discovery.” Dylan didn’t intend to sound venomous, but it came out that way. “Also, Super Friends was the sole exception. My dad understood that his children would need to recognize Superman and Batman if they were going to be productive members of American society.
We also weren’t allowed to read Harry Potter. I remember that very clearly. In retrospect, considering Rowling’s politics, not such a bad thing. He got me to read ‘The Jungle’ instead. I was nine.”
“The…Kipling book with the talking animals?”
“No, hell no. ‘The Jungle,’ by Upton Sinclair. Lithuanian immigrants working themselves to death in the stockyards of Chicago. Dead kids and sexual exploitation. It was meant to promote socialism, but people were just like, ‘Wow, the meatpacking industry sure is unsanitary!’ This led directly to the formation of the FDA.
But, anyhow, superheroes. Not allowed. Unless it was the Flaming Carrot, which is how I got to see Mystery Men. If you’re familiar with that movie, and the material it’s based on, you can imagine my father’s disappointment. He did like William H. Macy, though.”
“Dylan, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Sorry, I got sidetracked.”
“I was at your house all the time and I don’t remember anything like what you’re describing.”
“That’s because you and Dani were gay little rebels together. Then I was best friends with Oren Baumstein, whose parents only let him listen to classical music and radio dramas, so I entered puberty with the cultural sensibilities of a fucking time traveler. How did we get on this topic anyway?”
“I no longer recall,” she said with a dazed expression. “You’ve annihilated my short-term memory.”
“Oh.” He gave her an embarrassed grin. “You were talking about your sexuality, and I completely derailed it.”
“You’re good at that.” She blew him a kiss. “I was just saying that I knew right away I wasn’t straight. Attraction to girls felt natural.”
“Same. Girls are hot.”
“They really are. But it took me by surprise when I started thinking about boys too. I might have been fourteen. A whole new world opened up for me, and I had no context for it. I could look at my own body and imagine what it was like to be with a woman, but I couldn’t do the same with men. Boys were larger and louder. They could get you pregnant. They were dangerous. I was repulsed and attracted.”
“You had two moms. Weren’t they any help?”
Claire gave a mirthless chuckle. “Sweet summer child. My bio mom was distraught that I liked girls, but she wasn’t a nut about it. The thing, though, is that ‘bi’ just means ‘slut’ to her. The only advice she gave me was abstinence.”
“Eww.”
“My mom was less judgmental, but equally unhelpful. I was like, ‘Hey, I think I’d like to try dick, but I’m terrified of it,’ and her exact response was, ‘Most women feel that way.’ After that, there was a lot of talk regarding my ‘feminine essence’ and staying true to myself. Good advice, but it didn’t address my central concern. Fortunately, there was you.”
“Me?” Dylan felt like a deer caught in someone’s headlights. “I was instrumental to your sexuality?”
“That’s not exactly how I would describe it.” Her cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t look away. “I just knew that if there was one boy who wouldn’t hurt me, it was you. I was insanely curious. I thought about you so many times, it became a physical ache.”
Dylan was discombobulated. He recalled what his sister had told him over the phone in the bathroom. Her words echoed in his head. “massive crush…massive crush…sneaking into your room…sneaking into your room…Pat Benatar…Pat Benatar…” Dylan had told her that Dani called, but hadn’t divulged everything that transpired between them.
“Claire,” he began, “there’s something I should tell you—”
Their food arrived with great fanfare from the server. Claire’s stomach-brain immediately tuned him out. The smell of chorizo and fried potatoes soon rendered him speechless as well. The burrito was gargantuan, full to bursting, smothered in salsa and cheese, and topped with shredded lettuce and pickled onions. Claire had opted for mulitas de lengua topped with guacamole and crema. They also ordered a basket of buñuelos. They ate like rabid wolves.
“Oh my god,” said Claire. “This is way better than McDonald’s. Thank you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t regret waiting.” He tried not to talk with his mouth full. “I missed this place. Almost makes moving back home in disgrace worthwhile.”
“If I can ask, did you move to Seattle just to be closer to Lily?”
The question threw him for a loop. “Uh, kind of. Lily made for a good excuse, and I was interested in Seattle, but I could have gone anywhere, I suppose.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, not looking at him. “Seems like you wanted to get away, but not too away.”
He stopped shoveling food into his mouth long enough to think on it. “Yeah, that’s probably accurate. Portland was too close. A few hours’ drive from my parents is all I really needed. Not exactly a tour of the Pacific Rim, like you did.”
She snorted. “It was more like an internship. I did a lot of work for the family while I was in Tianjin. I barely spent any time in the Southern Hemisphere. I really want to see Indonesia. And the South Pacific.”
He felt a pang of sadness, but pushed it aside. “I guess I’m just not as adventurous. It’s also really expensive to travel.”
“It doesn’t have to be. There are ways to get around and live cheap. But you have to be willing to engage with a foreign culture, and accept discomfort. Americans aren’t good at those things.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I definitely want to see more of the world, I just don’t seem to have the wanderlust that others do. Hell, I’ve barely seen much of my own country.”
“I’m visiting Tianjin again in the fall.” She stared at him with a hooded expression over the rim of her coffee cup. “You should come with me.”
He almost choked on his burrito. “You want me to meet your relatives in China?”
“Why not?”
“I’m not against it, I just…it’s been over a decade since I even spoke to your family here.”
“You will.” She gave a demure shrug. “Unless you don’t want to?”
“No!” He beamed at her. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m just surprised. It’s a good surprise. I want to do all of that.”
“Good.” She seemed to relax. “Tianjin is stunning in the fall. My cousins will show us around Beijing.”
“That all sounds very exciting.” He hesitated. “And intimidating. How would your extended family feel about me being…you know…”
“A hunk?” She raised an eyebrow. “A delicious slab of man meat? One of my cousins is kind of a ho, so you’ll need to be careful. She also looks a lot like me, but skinnier, and she steals my clothes. You are not permitted to fuck her, even on accident.”
“Jesus,” he said with a wince. “I was going to say ‘white.’ Isn’t that…frowned upon?”
She scoffed. “What a question. My biological parents are first generation immigrants from a communist country who moved to the whitest large metro in the bad old US of A. My dad is a successful salesman, remarried to a white woman, with two American born children, neither of whom speak Mandarin well, or care that much about money.
I’m a queer ABC woman with a round face and a big ass. I’ve had more girlfriends than my father and brother combined, now I’m having post-coital breakfast with the first boy who ever made me wet.”
Dylan nearly choked again. “You’re gonna give me a swole head with that kind of talk.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said with a serene smile. “The point is, I’m standing under a mountain of intersections. Anything I do is going to be frowned upon.”
“Damn.” He had nothing profound to add. “That’s a lot.”
“I learned a long time ago that I’m not going to get anything I want by listening to other people’s expectations.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Tianjin is a Tier 1 city. There’s plenty of Americans around. The family doesn’t mind white people. Especially if they have money.”
“You know I don’t have money, right?”
“Sure, but my relatives don’t need to know that. We can tell them after the wedding.”
A strange, panicked look crossed her face. “That was a joke!”
A crooked smile crossed his face, hiding the pangs of sadness that returned with a vengeance. What they’d shared last night was special, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime connection, but in the sober light of day, he now confronted their discrepancies. Claire was talented, capable, multicultural, and a smokeshow.
She had the face of an influencer, someone to pine for on Instagram. His face was meant to be edited from the backgrounds of Instagram photos. He was unaccomplished, unemployed, a writer in a society that was swiftly forgetting how to read and write. What did he has to offer her except…
this thing that they would not yet name.
“Dylan?” her voice snapped him back to the present. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” he said, a little too emphatically. “This is just…I really love this burrito.”
“Oh, okay.” She did not look convinced. “Listen, if I freaked you out—”
“I’m not freaked out.” He took her hand in his. “I’m not, I promise. I think I’m just hungover from the edibles. Also, I should come clean about something.”
Her expression sank. “What is it?”
“Nothing horrible, I just don’t want to keep secrets from you.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but all this build-up is making me nervous.”
“It’s just about the talk I had with Dani this morning.”
Claire relaxed slightly. “You mean when she called to gloat?”
Dylan nodded. “Does it piss you off that she manipulated us?”
“Of course it does.” She laced her fingers with his. “But I can’t argue with results.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you everything about the call.” He smiled weakly. “She told me that you wanted to sneak into my room when we were kids.”
Claire’s face turned scarlet. “That bitch.”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed! I would have been…totally receptive.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She hid her face in her hands. “I think it’s really sweet. And sexy.”
“Is there more?”
“Yeah, there is. I told Dani…I told her I was going to ask you to move in with me.”
Claire dropped her hands, eyes wide, face still scarlet. “I know it’s sudden,” he said, “and I don’t want to rush you, especially if—”
“The answer is yes,” she said with a shuddering breath. “As soon as possible.”
He felt like his head might float away. “You’re not gonna miss your current place?”
“Fuck my apartment, they’re still charging me pet rent from that time I fostered a cat. My lease is up in April. That gives you plenty of time to find a job.”
Dylan’s elation curdled. “Easier said than done in this economy. I’ve been applying, I get interviews, but then…nothing.”
“Just be patient and persistent.” She pressed his fingers to her lips. “I’d be happy to look at your resume. I am a manager, after all.”
“That’s true, you have valuable insight.”
“And don’t be afraid to branch out! Sometimes, you just gotta take whatever you can get. It’s a lot easier to apply for a better job when you’re already employed.”
He nodded, mildly annoyed at the suggestion that he was aiming too high, but realized that she was just trying to be helpful. “And you’re not worried this is moving too fast?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Are you?”
“No,” he said truthfully. “But there is one thing I’m scared of. Well, two things, Dani being one of them.”
“What does Danielle have to do with…oh no.”
Unexpected Visitor
Dressed like a Patagonia model and carrying a pair of clamshell to-go boxes, his sister sauntered up to their table, looking mighty pleased with herself. “Hellooooooo! I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but Sarah wanted buñuelos, and I knew you’d be here, so…”
Dylan shook his head. “Dani, this is premature, surely?”
“But I had to see it!”
“You’re something else,” said Claire frigidly. “You just can’t help yourself.”
“That’s funny,” replied Danielle, unfazed. “Which one of us was trying to jump the other one’s bones? Was that really less than twenty-four hours ago? Things change so quick around here.”
Claire slammed her fork on the table.
“Wait a minute.” Dylan leapt from his seat. “This is not necessary. Can we back up and try this again?”
“You’re talking to me?” said Claire and Danielle simultaneously.
“Yes, both of you! The timing sucks, but we’re here now, so you might as well sort this out. You two are best friends, remember?”
They glared at each other, but gradually relented. Danielle removed her knit cap and pulled up a chair beside Dylan. Claire folded her arms and reclined like a petulant teenager.
“So…” Dylan extended a hand to each of them. “Who wants to go first?”
Claire heaved a sigh. “Let’s get this over with. I had a crush on you.”
“I gathered,” said Danielle evenly. “And I did try to dissuade you from it. I maybe could have tried harder, but I also feel like I shouldn’t have had to.”
“I wasn’t listening,” agreed Claire. “I just plowed ahead.”
“Which you’re famous for, and that’s okay, because I love that about you.” Danielle reached over and gave Claire’s hand a mildly patronizing pat. “So, even though you didn’t listen to me, and you didn’t take my feelings into consideration, or, by extension, my partner’s feelings, the woman I love most, I forgive you. And Sarah will forgive you too.”
Claire grimaced. “Doesn’t really feel like forgiveness.”
“To be fair, you didn’t actually say you were sorry.”
“Are you serious?”
Danielle shrugged. Claire heaved another sigh, which then became a softer, more remorseful sound. “I’m sorry. Truly, Danielle, I am.”
“Apology accepted.”
“It was foolish, and self-destructive, and if I could go back—”
“Okay, okay, no need to beat yourself up. I declare this crush officially dead and buried.” Danielle beamed at her, then Dylan, then Claire again. “So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, how’s your love life?”
Claire shook her head in bemusement. “I met someone. As though you didn’t know.”
“Call it women’s intuition.” Danielle winked at her brother. “Some crushes don’t really die, they just wait to be revived.”
“If you had told me that Dylan was staying at your apartment, things might have gone a little differently.”
“Yeah, they would have gone nowhere.” Danielle folded her arms and gave them each a defiant look. “Neither of you was getting out of your own way, so I did it for you. Also, I’m legit married now. Peep the ring. I got a certificate and everything. I couldn’t wait around all year for things to happen organically, I needed my space back so I could move out for real and go shopping with my wife. You wouldn’t believe how many vision boards that woman has made.”
Claire’s eyes widened into dinner plates. “Oh shit.”
Dylan smiled apologetically. “I hadn’t mentioned that part to her yet. I figured it wasn’t my news to break.”
“Danielle!” Claire looked absolutely devastated. “You got married and you didn’t tell me?”
“Hey now, hey,” Danielle reached over the table, suddenly chastened, grasping for Claire’s hands. “Honey, don’t cry, we hardly told anybody.”
Claire started bawling. Danielle looked at Dylan, who urged her onward. After a second’s hesitation, Danielle went around the table and embraced Claire fully.
“It was a courtroom wedding,” said Danielle softly. “Sarah and I wanted it to be a surprise. We’re gonna have a party in the spring. A big, colorful bash. There’s gonna be a photo booth and a videographer and a grill and a shitload of alcohol. No ceremonies, no religion, just all of our favorite people, getting wasted and having a good time. Won’t that be wonderful?”
Claire was beside herself. “I almost ruined everything. I don’t know what I was thinking, I just felt so alone, and then your brother…oh god, Dani.”
“Shh, everything’s fine.”
“I know what it must look like, but it really happened just like that.”
“Listen, babe.” The kindness in Danielle’s face morphed into stern appraisal, the kind their father would give them when they were children. “Do you care for my brother?”
Claire met Danielle’s gaze without flinching, her voice steady despite the tears. “Yes. I care about him more than I’ve cared about anyone. I want this to work.” Danielle nodded, the tension easing from her shoulders as she pulled both of them into a loose hug. The three sat quietly for a moment, the weight of old grudges lifting, replaced by a fragile but genuine sense of peace and new beginnings in the warm bustle of the taqueria.
