Caleb taps his plastic champagne flute with a knife, which obviously makes no sound, and clears his throat. 'Queerly beloved, thank you for gathering here today to celebrate everyone's favourite time of year: my birthday.'

Once his welcome speech finishes, he bows, everyone cheers, and Eilidh helps him off the kitchen table. The music starts up again.

Though Caleb could probably get dozens of people to a party with zero notice, he usually limits his birthdays to close friends only. We can play board games easier and he won't have to worry about masking.

He bounds up to me and thrusts a glass into my hand. 'Drink up!'

I agreed to drink tonight (Reminder: I am allowed one night of having fun. Reminder: If summat happens with Cece, Bobbi is there and Bobbi is brilliant and much better at all this than me. Reminder: "They wanted you to live your life, that's why they left".) but I inspect the cocktail.

It's blue, first of all, and I can't tell if it's fizzy or not through the dick-shaped ice cubes. I got Caleb the penis ice tray as a joke when he started T, but he uses it very dutifully. As in, it's the only ice he has.

'What is it?'

'Better yet: what isn't it?'

'He'll be meeting God after drinking all that,' Eilidh remarks as she wedges past us to join Daisy and her queer-platonic partner Fallon on the sofa.

Caleb stares at me intently as I take a sip of his mystery cocktail. It tastes exactly like the sort of "let me pour everything I can get my hands on into a glass" thing we'd drink as freshers. Which is to say absolutely hanging. Instant war flashbacks to Ring of Fire. You can tell Caleb does drag and does not bartend. 

But Caleb nods eagerly with every sip until he deems me to have had enough and latches onto my arm. 'I have an itty bitty little cheeky birthday favour to ask you. And remember that you can't say no because it's my birthday and that's illegal.'

I try to scrub the flavour of what might be Sourz Tropical off my tongue against the roof of my mouth as I watch the glass. The dick ice bobs among dregs of electric blue. 'Did you just drug me so I'd say yes?'

'What gave you that idea?' Caleb scoffs. He shakes my arm, jostling my eyes to his. 'Can you teach me to drive?'

I screw up my face with exaggerated agony. 'Can't your mum teach ya?'

'Nah, cause I tried that, and she called me an idiot in ten languages and then I had a panic attack. Put me in a right state, innit. And then the other one spent our whole "lesson" assuring me that it's okay if I'm too traumatised and don't wanna drive. Well, clearly I want to or I wouldn't've asked ya to teach me, would I?' Returning to the present, Caleb pleads, literally hanging on my arm now. 'Please, Nikki. If you teach me to drive, you won't have to chauffer me around. I can chauffer you around.'

'Yeah, to the hospital.'

Caleb continues to hang on me, sliding progressively lower until he's clinging to my leg, pleading like I've got the power to bring his childhood tiger barbs, Keanu Reefs and Sir Adam Anthony Azrael of Ardania, back to life.

'The point of you teaching me is so I can get better at it,' he whinges. 'How were I supposed to practice before: I've not had a leg for nine years.'

'It's not RuPaul's Queers Who Can't Drive Race so when you crash my car, I won't be getting a cash price of a hundred thousand dollars to replace it.'

His lashes fill with tears on command as he employs puppy eyes.

'Okay, fine.' I interrupt him before he can leap into thank yous. 'But we're practising with your mum's car.'

He convulses on the floor. 'The Vine reference urge is so high. The demons, they've got me.' Heaving himself upright using me as a pole, he side-eyes me. 'Anyway, you have a Freudesque relationship with your car. Maybe that's why ya can't get a partner.'

I drink the rest of his mystery cocktail. 'At least I have a car.'

'At least I have parents.' Caleb smacks his hands over his mouth, clutching my arm with the other. 'I'm sorry. Dunno why I said that. Uncalled for.'

Swirling the dick ice around my glass, I shrug. 'That's alright. At least I don't have to deal with my parents getting divorced.'

'True enough, baby girl. True enough.'

He grins and seizes me into a hug I'm happy to reciprocate. Caleb's signature frankincense cologne twines around me as I kiss the top of his head. We sway on the spot, holding each other for several minutes. The geraniums in my chest never wilt.

Caleb was the person who taught me to hug. It were the second week of nursery before we'd ever interacted. He dropped a crayon that rolled off the desk and several yards away, I brought it back for him, and he hugged me. Just like that, for summat so small. He were mostly non-verbal back then so a hug was his primary way of communicating positive emotions. He'd hug me twenty times a day sometimes.

It worked out well that physical affection is important for both of us—I've never had to starve for it since knowing him.

He pulls away and his soft expression gains the edge of a furrowed brow. 'Why are you crying?'

'I just love you so much.'

Caleb slides his arms back around me, squeezing so tight he might be attempting to break me in half. 'I love you so much, Nicolás.'

I cradle him into another hug that we stay in for another minute.

Even Caleb has to wipe his tears with the corners of his sleeves when he steps back though considering he's wearing a mesh top, I doubt it helps much. They cling to his lashes as he looks at me through them and sniffs.

'Anyway, speaking of relationships, don't you think Joe looks mighty fit tonight?'

The transition is too abrupt and I take a beat to process. Or maybe I just get caught up imagining all the midriff showing with her sports bra and jeans combo. 'Joe always looks fit.'

He rolls his eyes. 'You're so afraid of being attracted to her, your knob's gonna fall off like a gecko's tail.'

Caleb has changed his mind again, back to pestering me to ask Joe out. I dunno what happened but through November, he's been all Team Joe again. 

I don't have time to rebut that before Allan appears beside us, beaming as he breaks open a can of Fanta Exotic. 'Are you asking Joe out?' Is he even gonna pretend not to be butting into the conversation or...?

'No,' I respond, looking and back and forth between Caleb and Allan's equally expectant faces. 'I'm doing to opposite: never asking her out.'

'You have feelings for her.'

'I'll get over it.'

'She has feelings for you.'

Tucking my hands into my pockets, I lean against the kitchen counter. 'Not like that, she don't.' My focus, which has escaped to my feet, snaps up to them again. 'Are we forgetting the part where she's in love with her ex?'

Allan watches her through the serving hatch between the kitchen and living room. Joe and Parker are raving about summat, both waving their hands around in their excitement, though it's impossible to catch any words over Little Simz. 'I dunno if she's in love with her.'

'Yeah, she just talks about her all the time,' I grumble and roll my eyes at myself.

What fucking right have I got to be throwing a strop? Warning: About to flounder off Possessive Toxic Man Cliff.

'Another thing she always talks about is how much she wants to have casual sex with everyone in this city. Which we all know, I'm fucking awful at because I fall in love after one kiss.'

Allan shrugs. 'But she fancies you. They were together for seven years! That sort of history don't just disappear, it doesn't mean she's in love with her.'

'She explicitly told me she don't wanna be in a relationship.'

But on Halloween, she did say that she "can't" be in a relationship, not that she don't want to. And also it is December now—even if she didn't want to be in a relationship when we met, it's been months. That could've ch–

I shake my head. 'I am not gonna be the bloke who ambushes his friends with some love confession out of nowhere. Women hate that.'

'Yeah,' Caleb says like I'm a bit mentally challenged, 'unless she's also interested. Which Joe is.'

'Why can't she ask me out if she supposedly has feelings for me?'

'I suppose she could. But she's not my best mate—I can't harass her like this.'

I cross my ankles, then cross them the other way. There's an itch somewhere under my skin and it turns my voice more snide than I'd like. 'First, you tell to ask her out, then you tell me to under no circumstances even think about asking her out, and now you're telling me to ask her out again. Pick a side–! Oh, hey, Joe.'

All three of us try our best to act natural as she steps into the kitchen though the result is about as natural as it would be if Caleb just said "How goes it? We weren't talking about you or owt". Which he honestly looks one second away from doing.

She's in too good a mood to bother with our wankerness. Allan grabs Caleb and forces him out of the kitchen. And, fuck, it's just us two.

My body burns up as Joe opens the fridge. 'D'you want one?' she asks, noticing my pocketed hands.

I sneer at the can of Tennents she cracks open. 'No, I don't want a beer. I only drink things that are fruity and fifty per cent sugar.'

She leans with her hip against the fridge and grins. Someone check my vital signs. I'm either having an aneurysm or a stroke. Why not both?

Definitely both when she says, 'Will you let me make you something?'

I am reacting to this normally like a well-adjusted person. My insides aren't turning inside out or anything. Maybe drinking is not a good idea. I've not drunk for years and I've never drunk around Joe. What if I have one drop of her mystery cocktail and then I'm on my knees?

'As long as it's better than whatever concoction Caleb's just fed me.'

'It'll be better.' Joe opens the cupboard and grabs a Manchester United pint from among all the pints we stole from Spoons over the years. 'I thought Caleb was a City fan.'

'Oh, he is. That's why it was funny to get him United merch. Until he threatened to murder us, that is.'

Notes

T: Testosterone, hormones taken to change the body towards masculine associations like lowering the voice and producing more body hair.

Tiger barbs: A species of tropical fish that is common to keep as a pet.

"I'm in my mum's car" Vine:

https://youtu.be/VineCentral

Spoons: Weatherspoons. Pub chain in the UK and Ireland.