The Prospects by KT Hoffman

Author:KT Hoffman [Hoffman, KT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2024-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Luis does, in fact, hate it, but not enough that he’s willing to admit defeat. Gene offers three times, and Luis shakes him off each time, so he leaves Luis alone to his controlled breathing.

They’ve all dressed up for the dinner, somewhat. Gene is in a button-up that he hasn’t buttoned anywhere above the bottom of his ribs, along with the same jeans and Docs he wears more or less everywhere. Ernie wears the most straight-guy dress-up outfit imaginable—khakis, untucked blue button-up—but he has, at least, rolled the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows and added a nice watch. Luis wears a white T-shirt, tucked into his nicest black jeans, which in turn are tucked into the ankle boots he is so fond of wearing. Gene’s family probably won’t bother to put on shoes, so even a plain blue button-up will look fancy; it still means something to Gene that they all, independent of each other, decided to make an occasion of the night.

“Okay,” Ernie says as they walk from the train station, a very separated O and K. “You were adopted.”

“Yes,” Gene says.

“By your uncle.”

“Bingo.”

“Because your mom was a hot mess.”

“Dude,” Luis says.

“No, that’s fair,” Gene says. “Yeah.”

“And your uncle-dad is married to a man,” Ernie says, drawing imaginary lines in the air like he’s trying to connect the lines of Gene’s family tree. “And that man has a daughter from his last marriage. So now she’s your sister. Am I forgetting anything?”

“He has a nephew,” Luis says. “Mattie.”

“Oh, I won’t remember any of these people’s names,” Ernie says.

They laugh as they round the corner onto Gene’s dads’ street.

When he was in college, Gene did not feel proud to have grown up in Gowanus, which he’d learned was known outside of New York mostly for its dirty canal. Now, with Luis and Ernie trailing behind him, he feels a sort of unexpected affection—not just for the neighborhood but for how comfortable he is here, and how well he remembers how to get from the station to the squat three-story building in which his dad and stepdad live. That bone-deep knowledge that he will never lose.

It isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s his place, and his people, the same as Beaverton.

“Where’s Vince?” Art calls from the kitchen, as soon as Franklin opens the front door for them.

Gene doesn’t answer that question. “Hey, Art. Good to see you, too.”

Art—Franklin’s husband, Gene’s stepdad since he was sixteen—comes into the living room holding a dripping spoon and embraces Gene. He always smells a little like tomato sauce and garlic, like the Italian grocery store he owns, and Gene takes in a deep whiff. The man gives better hugs than anyone Gene has met, literally ever, and he gives them liberally. When he gets ahold of Luis, Gene has to laugh. He looks something like a green bean next to Art.

They serve dinner family-style, in large bowls in the center of a table that wasn’t built for this many people and which

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