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“So,” Marjan says as she sidles up next to TK at the crate of records he’s digging through, “What’s the deal with dreamy Officer Reyes?”
“Oh god,” TK says with a groan, dropping the bright pink Dolly Parton album he’d been examining. With a nod to Paul on the other side of the table he asks, “He told you?”
“Oh yeah,” Marjan says with an exaggerated wag of her eyebrows and a punch to his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ow!”
“Better question, why wasn’t I invited to the club?” She pouts but TK can tell she’s joking, “You know I love to dance.”
“Sorry, Marj, I guess I didn’t think a gay club would really be your scene.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, “I don’t judge!”
“I know that!” He lifts his hands in a placating gesture. “Next time, I promise!”
“Okay, I'm gonna hold you to that,” she says. After they’ve been perusing the crates of records for a few more minutes she speaks up again. “He only told me a couple days after you guys all went out. I basically forced it out of him, I could tell he was feeling better and I wanted to know why.”
“Nosy,” TK says with a smirk. But he’s relieved to hear his attempt to cheer Paul up was even a little bit successful. “You really think it helped?”
“Yeah, I really do,” she says. “He said you guys had a lot of fun and that he met some nice girls. And that Carlos kept buying him drinks, and you were checking in on him when he was dancing with those girls.” She fixes him with a pointed look, “He also said it looked an awful lot like you and Carlos were more than just friends.”
“Did he really?” TK asks rhetorically with a sharp look in Paul’s direction.
“It was good of you guys,” she says genuinely. “It’s important to be reminded that you’re not alone.”
“Yeah,” he says, bumping his shoulder against Marjan’s. “Us carpetbaggers gotta stick together.”
The trio has found themselves at this estate sale in suburban Austin, their curiosity piqued as they drove past after eating at a vegan taco truck in the neighborhood. The house’s sprawling lawn is covered with stuff, organized into categories like books, music, clothes and furniture. Four tables full of vinyl records on the edge of the lawn had caught Paul and TK’s eyes. The pair recently discovered a shared love of vinyl while splitting a late-night Kit-Kat bar that TK had smuggled past his dad into the firehouse kitchen.
TK mentioned that Owen refused to let him display his modest record collection because it would clash with the minimalist aesthetic of his house. Instead his stereo system and records are stored in his room. Owen had offered to allow the turntable and speakers to be set up in the den, on the condition that TK add a selection of his favorites, like Tom Petty and Toto, to his collection. TK, knowing he would end up in yacht rock hell if he agreed to his dad’s terms, had firmly refused.
Paul recalled how he’d inherited his grandparents’ record collection when he was a kid – mostly jazz, blues and classic Afrobeats – and later his dad’s records too. He’s been adding to it since he was old enough to have his own money. It now contains a healthy selection of funk, disco, old school hip hop and early jazz.
TK hasn’t bought any new records since leaving New York, and hasn’t been actively crate digging since before he started seeing his ex, Alex. But he’s gone record shopping with Paul a few times since that night at the firehouse, he’s started googling record shops in the Austin area and they’ve made a list of stores they want to visit. It’s a part of himself that he’d buried in his relationship, in his attempts to be the perfect modern metropolitan boyfriend for Alex. Alex who thought vinyl was for hipsters, and anything outside of the top 40 charts was eccentric. Who told TK not to play any of that “weird shit” when his friends were over. And it feels nice to reclaim it, to discover this passion again in a music mecca like Austin with his new friends. With Paul, who understands more than anyone what it’s like to not quite fit into the spaces you think you should.
“Anyway,” Marjan says as she moves down the aisle. None of these records are calling to him, so he follows. “Tell me about Carlos, he seems like a really good guy. Also, he’s very nice looking.”
“Yeah,” he says hesitantly. “He is.”
“But?” she gestures for him to continue.
“I kind of just got my heart ripped out and stomped on,” he says with a tilt of his head. “Then set on fire and thrown into the Hudson. I’m not ready for anything remotely serious right now.”
“Okay,” she says softly with a hand on TK’s forearm. “I get that. But Carlos seems like a sweet guy, I bet if you tell him that he’ll understand.”
“Maybe,” TK says, standing back while Marjan starts to dig through a box of wigs.
“TK,” she says firmly as she pulls a platinum blonde bob out of the box and combs through it with her fingers. “I know we’ve only known each other for like four months, but I swear you are the sweetest guy I know, you have the biggest heart. You deserve nice things.”
He grunts as she fixes the wig on his head.
“Your ex may have treated you like garbage, but you are not garbage,” she says with a finger poking at his chest for emphasis. She steps back and admires the look. “You deserve a nice, dreamy guy who will treat you like you’re special. Because you are.” She finishes her sentence with a wink as she steps forward to adjust the wig. “I know I don’t know him very well, but I don’t think Carlos is the type of guy to stomp all over your heart. Maybe give him a chance.”
He thinks about this as she pulls another blonde wig out of the box, big and curly. He truly doesn’t know Carlos very well, but he knows he’s a good person. He’s smart and unassumingly funny, sweet and compassionate, stable in a way that scares TK a little. He’d immediately been up for taking Paul out when TK asked. TK thinks that one day he might be deserving of a guy like that, but not right now. Plus, he’s just started uncovering his quirky passions again. He’s not sure he’s ready or willing to start boxing that stuff back up to fit into another relationship.
Marjan puts the new wig on her own head and TK thinks she looks a lot like Dolly did on the cover of the record he was just looking at. Marjan checks herself out in her phone camera with an approving grin, “Nice. Come on, we gotta complete the look.”
TK follows with trepidation as she leads him to another section of the yard with jewelry and accessories. She snatches a pair of white heart-shaped sunglasses and wipes them on her shirt before handing them to TK, “put these on.”
She finds a pair of aviators for herself and finishes the look with a stacked pearl necklace for TK and a white feather boa and a gaudy pair of gold clip-on hoop earrings for herself.
“Alright, selfie time,” she sings as she pulls her phone out. She positions him in front of a tall yellow rose bush before standing next to him and snapping a bunch of photos.
“You’re not putting these on Instagram are you?” He asks.
“Oh yeah.”
“Ugh, don’t you have like two million followers? They do not need to see this.”
“Are you kidding? Cardi B is gonna love this!”
“Jeeze, Marj how —”
Their conversation is cut short by Paul, who practically runs up to them with a stack of records in his arms.
“Guys!” He shouts, doesn’t look even a bit phased by their getup. “Look what I found.” He holds up a copy of Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’ like Mufasa holding baby Simba. “An original issue trifold, I’ve been looking for this for years.”
TK takes the record and opens it carefully, a fold-out poster of George Clinton decked out in furs and diamonds falls out. Marjan catches it before it can hit the ground.
“Dude, this is a rare find,” TK says. It’s marked at $50, this seller clearly hasn’t done any research into the value of these records. Original-issue copies of Funkadelic albums are super hard to find, and they’re usually priced at $150 or more. “You gotta get this.”
“I know,” Paul says. “I’m gonna.”
“What’s so special about this one?” Marjan asks, peering over TK’s shoulder at the record’s artwork. He hands it over to her while Paul explains.
“Funkadelic is one of the pioneering funk groups of the 70s, but they never had the commercial success of groups like Sly and the Family Stone or WAR because they were an all-black group, and they didn’t conform to white pop radio standards,” Paul says. “‘Maggot Brain’ is considered one of the greatest records of all time by most critics, but it’s still a cult classic. Their band leader, George Clinton, was super forward-thinking and he wasn’t afraid to talk about politics and race in his lyrics. That was considered really controversial back then.”
“Umm,” Marjan says as she turns the record over in her hands. “It probably would have helped if they used less scary album art.” She hands it back to Paul. “Maybe if they called it something nicer than ‘Maggot Brain.’”
“Touché, Marj, touché,” Paul concurs.
“But now I kinda wanna listen to it.”
“I got you, dude,” Paul says, taking the record from her. “I’ve already texted everyone I know in Austin to come over to listen to it tonight.”
“Like a listening party?” Marjan asks and Paul nods. “That’s a fun idea.”
—
TK’s already got a text from Carlos by the time he’s climbing into the back seat of Paul’s car.
Another text comes through a minute later.
Feeling emboldened, TK quickly sends one of Marjan’s wig selfies. In it he’s making a duck face while Marjan has her aviators pulled down, winking over the top. He smiles softly to himself when he gets Carlos’s response.
“What are you smiling about?” Paul asks with a raised eyebrow in the rear view mirror. “Got a text from Officer Hotstuff?”
“Shut up,” TK says with a roll of his eyes as Paul and Marjan snicker in the front seat.
“Come on, Paul, it’s not even like that.”
“Oh yeah?” Paul teases as he puts the car in gear. “It looked pretty ‘like that’ the other night. You shoulda seen them, Marj. TK was grinding on that sweet, straitlaced boy so hard I thought we’d have to use the jaws of life to separate them. Officer Dreamboat was looking at TK with those giant heart eyes. He’s already in love.”
“Oh my god,” TK whines. “He is not. We’re not even dating. We’re just …hanging out”
“Sure, whatever you say dude. I mean, I’ve never dry humped someone I’m ‘hanging out’ with in the middle of a club, but good for you I guess.”
“Anyway,” TK says with a wave of his hand. “He’s just texting because you went and invited him over tonight. I didn’t realize you were being literal when you said you were inviting everybody you know in Austin.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, do you not want to see him? Should I uninvite him? Tell him TK’s too chickenshit to admit he’s got the hots for him?”
“Ugh,” TK groans, throwing his head back on the headrest. “Fine, whatever. I’m so not helping you clean those records you bought when we get home.”
“Umm.”
TK pops forward, hands gripping both sides of the front passenger seat. “You do clean your records, right?”
“Yeah of course,” Paul clears his throat, shifting his eyes back to TK’s in the rear view. “I mean… I blow the dust off when I go to play them.”
“Paul, what the hell? You can’t just ‘blow the dust off,’” TK gestures wildly with air quotes. “You just bought $200 worth of original-issue records. If you don’t clean them they’ll be ruined, you can’t just replace them! Plus they’ll destroy the needle on your turntable.”
“How do you clean a record?” Marjan asks.
“If they’re really dirty you can wash them with dish soap and water,” TK says. “But I have a special cleaning spray and a brush that works pretty well.”
“So what you’re saying is we should swing by your place on the way back to mine?” Paul asks. “Maybe Cap has some cheese I can steal so I can make my famous lasagna tonight.”
“I doubt it,” TK says as he sits back in his seat with a sigh.
—
TK is sprawled on the floor behind the entertainment center when Carlos — punctual as ever — knocks on the door.
They’d made a stop at the Strand house on the way back to Paul’s so TK could grab some records and his gear — record cleaning supplies, speaker wire and clippers. After the debate in the car Paul admitted he also hadn’t hooked up his stereo system yet. TK took the opportunity to change into a blue button down and jeans — he didn’t want Carlos to see him in the cut-off shorts and old Portland Trailblazers t-shirt he’d been wearing.
“What are you doing?” Carlos asks him after he’s greeted Paul and Marjan and handed over the bottles of wine and artisanal root beer he’d brought.
“I’m setting up Paul’s stereo system,” TK answers from his spot behind the tower speaker. “I think this record listening party was just a ploy to get me to splice his speaker wires.”
“How do you know how to do all this?” Carlos asks as he crouches down next to TK.
“My cousin Jordan,” he says as he sits up and gestures for Carlos to hand him the spool of speaker wire he’d left on the coffee table. “He’s a music producer, I hung out with him a lot when I was growing up. I guess my mom thought he would keep me out of trouble.”
In all honesty, Jordan had kept him out of trouble for the most part. He never took him to the parties he DJ’ed, but he always let him hang around in the record store he worked at after school, and later in his living room, which he converted into a small recording studio. He taught TK about music — disco, funk, electronic, old school hip-hop, British house — and how to pick out the best records, which labels to look for, the best producers, and which of the small stores around the city had the best finds. When Jordan and his friend Nick started recording music together, he and TK had set up a lot of the equipment themselves.
“He worked at a record store when I was in middle school, I’d hang out there sometimes,” TK continues as he starts to unspool the wire. “When he started producing his own music he taught me how to wire everything — speakers, mics, synthesizers…”
“Impressive,” Carlos says.
“Yeah?” TK wags his eyebrows. “I’m more than just a great ass and a pretty face.”
Carlos barks a laugh and Marjan lets out a scandalized “ooh” from where she’s sitting on the couch as another knock comes from the front door.
“Alright hosers,” Judd says as Paul opens the door for him. He saunters in with a six pack under one arm and Grace under the other. “What’s all this fuss about a record? I thought I was the old guy ‘round here.”
“Ha ha,” Paul says, holding the door for Mateo who trails in behind Judd and Grace. “Records are cool again, haven’t you heard? This is a rare find and you all need to hear it.” When Judd shoots him an unimpressed look he adds, “It’s also an excuse to make my famous lasagna, can’t really make that just for myself.”
“Now that I can get on board with,” Judd says as he pulls a beer out of the six pack he just set on the counter, cracking it open with a quick twist of his hand. He hands the bottle to Grace before grabbing another for himself.
Satisfied with the speaker wiring, TK plugs the stereo equipment into a surge protector he’d yoinked from the garage while they were at the house and pulls himself up from his spot on the floor. He takes out one of the records he brought over — a West End white label he picked up in a Harlem record store when he was about 15 — and puts it on the turntable before putting Carlos and Marjan to work cleaning the records Paul brought home from the estate sale. As a disco beat thrums through the apartment he shows them how to properly handle the records, how to use the special cleaning spray and the microfiber brushes.
“I had no idea records took this much work,” Carlos comments.
“It’s not that much work,” TK says. “But when you’re dealing with something five decades old you gotta take care of it to keep it in good shape.” He cuts a look to Paul, who diverts his eyes to the sauce he’s stirring on the stove.
—
It’s the first time Carlos has hung out with the group as a whole, and TK’s surprised to find himself a little nervous. But Carlos fits in immediately. He’s already got an easy friendship with Judd and Grace, having worked with both of them for the past few years since he joined the force. Paul and Marjan love him because of the club night, Marjan keeps making hearts with her hands and exaggerated kissy faces from the kitchen counter behind Carlos’s back. Mateo’s looking at him like he’s the big brother he never had. He’s asking Carlos an endless string of questions about what it’s like to be a cop: is the utility belt as heavy as it looks, what are some of the craziest calls he’s been on, has he ever met a police dog, do they really get all the donuts they can eat, until Paul puts a hand up and tells him to, “Chill, probie, let the man breathe. This ain’t a ride along.”
Once the lasagna is in the oven Paul pours tall glasses of root beer for TK and Marjan, and a glass of wine for everyone else and TK gets ‘Maggot Brain’ ready on the turntable. Paul and TK lay flat on the floor in front of the speakers, insisting this is the only way to experience a new album — this they can agree on — while everyone else takes a seat on the living room furniture. They pass the record sleeve around so everyone can check it out while TK drops the needle and the first song begins. It’s the title track, a ten-minute Eddie Hazel guitar instrumental. With its distorted, stretched-out guitar notes and wailing riffs it’s beautiful and it’s ethereal and trippy and TK feels a little drunk with it.
“This is sick,” Mateo says from the couch where he’s got his feet propped in Marjan’s lap and Paul shushes him.
When they get to “Hit It and Quit It,” a warbling staccato with a strong bassline and an alien, almost circus-like organ riff, TK’s tapping his toe and Carlos reaches a foot out to run a toe up his calf. TK looks over and smiles at Carlos, who’s mouthing along with the song, “I want you to hit it, hit it and quit it,” with a wink. TK hooks his foot around Carlos’s ankle and leaves it there.
The girls are up dancing by the third track, and Grace drags Carlos up with them. He twirls them around the living room while Judd reads through the liner notes with a deep look of contemplation on his face. The lasagna’s done in the oven when the final track — another ten-minute psychedelic jam mixed under an apocalyptic soundscape — fades out. The group sits stunned for a moment, TK himself is feeling moved almost to the point of tears. When Paul gets up to get the rest of dinner ready, TK stays on the floor a bit longer.
Eventually Carlos comes into view, dropping down to sit cross-legged next to TK.
“You good?” He asks, running a hand down TK’s thigh.
“Yeah I’m just processing,” TK says, sitting up with a sheepish smile. “That was—“
“Incredible,” Carlos finishes for him. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“Me neither, I mean, I like Funkadelic but I’ve never sat down and listened to a whole album,” TK says. “That was an experience. I feel like it changed me.”
“I’m definitely going to make a point to listen to their other albums,” Carlos says, pulling his phone out of his pocket to search for the band on Apple Music. TK looks over his shoulder and they both break into a fit of giggles when they see the album title ‘Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow.’ “Downloading that one right now.”
—
Over dinner the group discusses their thoughts on the album they just listened to. Of all of them, Paul is the only one who’d heard it in its entirety before tonight.
“I think it’s a beautiful monument to the social and political tensions of the early ‘70s,” Judd says. Grace pats his arm while everyone else stares at him for a minute. “What? I’m familiar with the intricacies of modern political history.”
“You sure are, sweetheart,” Grace says. “I’ve always loved ‘You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks.’ My daddy used to sing it to me and my sisters when we were real little.”
“I thought the guitar solo in the first song was straight fire,” Mateo says. “I felt like my brain was melting out through my ears.”
“True that, probie,” says Paul.
The conversation continues and eventually shifts to other topics, Grace’s new coworker who actually sent police officers to respond to a 911 call reporting a McDonald’s worker didn’t give them enough chicken nuggets, Paul and Judd debate the prospects of Michigan and UT’s football teams for the upcoming season. TK tells the group about Owen’s latest pull, a woman he met at the Lululemon outlet store.
—
At the end of the night Carlos asks TK if he needs a ride home. He knows he should say no, tell Carlos he’s good. He’ll take an Uber or walk or sleep on Paul’s couch, but he sees Marjan standing at the counter behind Carlos vigorously nodding her head yes. Paul’s standing next to her rudely gyrating his hips and mouthing a silent, “oh yeah!”
It takes every ounce of willpower he’s got not to roll his eyes. Instead he offers Carlos a soft, “Okay.”
He follows Carlos out the door once they’ve said their goodbyes. He’s quiet on the elevator and when they get to the car he boxes TK in against the hood on the passenger side.
“I’ve never seen anybody inhale a lasagna like that,” he says with a glint in his eyes, head ducked just a bit to make eye contact.
TK feels a little bit embarrassed, feels his face go red.
“Hey, I think it’s cute,” Carlos says as he reaches a hand up and squeezes TK’s side. “I’ll keep it in mind, see if Paul will give me his recipe.”
TK ducks his head and laughs a little. He’s not sure how he feels about that. About Carlos making notes, making him special recipes. He feels Carlos’s hand under his chin, gently tilting his head back up.
“You okay?” he asks, soulful eyes penetrating him like they can read his mind. Instead of answering he moves a hand up behind Carlos’s neck, pulling him forward to place a soft kiss on his lips. It’s a sweet kiss, but a short one.
“Hmm,” Carlos says as TK pulls back, voice deep and a soft smile playing at his lips. “What was that for?”
“Maybe I think you’re nice,” TK says. “Maybe I wanted to see if you taste like lasagna.”
This earns him a loud laugh from Carlos, who gives his side one more squeeze before guiding him into the car. When Carlos gets into the driver's seat he puts the keys in the ignition before turning to TK with a serious look, “Where am I taking you?”
“What do you mean,” TK feigns innocence.
“Am I taking you home, or,” his eyes trail down TK’s body and back up, “are you coming home with me?”
“Officer Reyes, what kind of boy do you think I am?”
“I know exactly what kind of boy you are, Firefighter Strand,” Carlos says. “You’re sweet—”
“Sometimes I’m sour.”
“Mm, sometimes,” Carlos nods in concession. “But mostly I think you’re sweet. And you’re brave. And cocky. And very good with that smart mouth.”
“Just my mouth?”
“Come home with me and we’ll find out.”
As TK contemplates the question, Marjan’s words ring in his head, ‘you deserve a sweet guy, give him a chance.’ He thinks of how patient Carlos has been, how well he gets on with his friends. How good he feels when he’s with Carlos, something heavy lifting from his heart like maybe this is the way it’s supposed to feel, when it’s the right kind of person. The way Carlos looks at him like he’s something valuable, and how much that scares him. He definitely doesn’t believe he deserves a guy like Carlos, knows he’ll just end up tainting him and pushing him away. But maybe he can allow himself to enjoy his sweetness for a little bit longer.
Carlos turns the car on and a surf guitar riff TK recognizes from a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard song softly fills the car. TK’s pleasantly surprised to see he’s got KUTX, the local NPR music station, programmed on the car radio. TK discovered it within a week of moving to Austin, and quickly told Paul and Marjan about it. They listen to it sometimes during downtime at the firehouse.
“You listen to this station?” TK asks incredulously.
“I am a card-carrying member of this fine NPR station,” Carlos corrects. “My favorite is KCRW out of LA, they’ve got a more diverse group of DJs. They play a lot of new Latino stuff — cumbia, reggaeton, Brazilian pop… But I like to support this one ‘cuz it’s local.”
“That’s really cool,” TK says, genuinely impressed. “You don’t just get new music from Spotify playlists?”
“Nah,” Carlos shrugs, “I like my playlists to be curated by humans. Not robots.”
“Me too,” TK says as he reaches across the console and takes Carlos’s hand, “You should take me home.”
Laughing at Carlos’s look of confusion he amends, “with you.”
Carlos gives a sharp nod, squeezing TK’s hand before dropping it so he can put the car into gear. TK doesn't miss the little smile that crosses his face when he signals to turn in the direction of the townhouse.