It’s not cold until it is, and then we are gathering up empties and dousing the embers with a cauldron of water, cast iron and heavy, a weight that feels good in the hands.

The others have already left, and upstairs they ask if I want tea, of course I do, yes; in their bedroom I step over discarded foam earplugs and peel off layers and watch them busy themself. 

Watch their beautiful hair, which is blond which is red which is gold.

They fill an electric kettle with water from the bathroom sink and tell me how it can’t run at the same time as the space heater even though it is cold, trust me, it’s cold.

When the water boils they steep it in an iron pot, and soon a cup scalds my hands.

I hold it anyway, fingertips tented and spidery around the hot metal, sip as we sit close together on a bed without pillows, just a quilt and delicate patterned sheets and a mattress I will lose an earring to, drink one cup two cups three with them refilling and us talking about something, something. 

About how I am a man, sort of, about how they’re learning that they are not.

Later we will spend hours wringing the pulp from each other, heads resting in the cradle of our armpits, no pillows, Prine singing and Cascadia shadowing our bodies.

But first I watch them eat dried tea leaves straight out of the jar. 

That can’t taste good I say and they tell me to try it so I do, brittle bitter bones turning plump on my tongue, and when I slosh water around my mouth to loosen the paste from my teeth, when later our mouths meet and gush and mend, it becomes its own kind of tea.