Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 19

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 19

Maybe if he sat very, very still, Eli wouldn’t notice this monumental internal revelation he was
currently experiencing. Please don’t notice, please don’t notice, Nick kept thinking on a loop. But
also simultaneously and just as loud in his mind: Please notice. Please say something. Please put
me out of my misery.
“Oh,” Eli said. He blinked a couple of times, then looked down between his knees at the grass.
For once, he was slow to speak. “Well. That’s—”
The garage door opened. This was a slow process accompanied by many a creak and squeal of
the mechanism. Nick’s dad called out in Hokkien, “Dinner’s ready! Let’s hurry and eat before it
gets—oh!” The garage door finished raising, and Tian-yi spotted them both on the lawn. He
switched to English to address Eli: “Hello there.”
Eli stood quickly, patting down his ass to get any grass off. Nick followed suit, feeling a bit
tongue-tied. Reintroducing the love of his life to his father right after the conversation they’d
had was not in his top ten ways to spend an evening.
“Hi, Mr. Wu,” Eli said, giving a cheery wave as they met in the middle of the driveway. “It’s good
to see you.”
“Nice to meet you.” Nick’s dad bobbed his head and gave him a wide smile. “Are you a friend of
Nick’s?”
Eli opened his mouth but said nothing, instead turning to Nick like he expected Nick to jump in
and explain.
Nick switched to Hokkien for the sake of his own sanity. The last thing he wanted was for Eli to
hear his dad—or Nick himself—say something embarrassing while they cleared this up. “Dad,
do you remember who I dated in high school?”
“Oh, of course.” His dad didn’t miss a beat, switching to English. “So this is Eli. Hello! Merry
Christmas! It’s been so long.” He reached for Eli’s hand and shook it heartily.
Eli looked delighted by this, his grin stretching his face so that the faint lines at the corners of his
eyes creased. “It really has.”
Nick tried not to let his mouth hang open; that was an invitation for his dad to tease him about
catching flies. “Wait, how did you—? I didn’t even know who Eli was until last week!”

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“The Wards are old friends,” Tian-yi said with all the patience of a fisherman. (Fishing was
another hobby he’d gotten serious about recently, going down to West Palm on weekends to
meet up with other retired uncles.) “Obviously we talk about our children.”
And here Nick had been racking his brain, trying to figure out a way to explain the transgender
experience when he didn’t know the Hokkien word for “trans” or “gender.”
Tian-yi must have seen all this pass over Nick’s face, because he sucked his teeth and laughed.
“Ai ya, you always make things so complicated, Nick. Relax.” Then, to Eli, he said, “It is good to
see you again, Eli, for the first time. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“Dad—”
“Boy, would I!”
Which is how Nick ended up sitting next to Eli at his dad’s kitchen table while Tian-yi laid out
about fourteen different dishes, from the grilled fish to scallion pancakes. He couldn’t even be
angry about his dad’s out-of-the-blue invitation, since Eli’s eyes were as wide as the serving
platters. Maybe they could find some time to speak privately after the meal. Nick felt they’d left
a lot unsaid. For the moment, he steeled himself to eat dinner while consumed with longing.
Conversation continued without much input from Nick, thankfully. Eli asked Nick’s dad if he was
still working at the power plant, and Tian-yi began telling him all about his retirement, and how
long it had taken him to get the yard in the shape it was.
While they chatted, Nick examined a bowl of bite-sized xiao mantou that was sitting innocuously
next to a pitcher of iced tea. They didn’t look like the ones
you could buy in the one Asian supermarket in the shopping plaza where the Italian bakery and
the bingo hall were. Those came mass-produced in a pegboard bag. These looked like they were
slightly different shapes and sizes, like they were homemade.
Nick’s dad didn’t bake, though. That had been wholly his mom’s wheelhouse. Had he taken up
yet another hobby in his retirement? Nick picked up one of the tiny pale biscuits between his
thumb and forefinger. The texture totally gave it away. Definitely fresh.
“Where did you get these, Dad?” he asked.
“Oh, a friend gave them to me,” Tian-yi said with uncharacteristic vagueness. “Here, here, eat
these before it gets cold.” He pushed a platter of fragrant run bing across the table.
Nick eyed him closely. He had so many follow-up questions. What friend? These cookies had to
be super fiddly to make, and therefore indicated a depth of friendship that Nick didn’t think

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Tian-yi had with his fishing buddies. But before he could ask, the conversation was moving on
without the critical xiao mantou backstory.