by Adib Khorram
DIAL BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Random
House LLC, 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Adib Khorram
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khorram, Adib, author.
Title: Darius the Great deserves better / Adib Khorram.
Description: New York : Dial Books, [2020] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Audience: Grades 7-9. | Summary: “Darius Kellner has everything he thought he wanted–a new boyfriend, a new internship, and a spot on the soccer team–but growing up makes him question everything”– Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020008231 (print) | LCCN 2020008232 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593108239 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593108253 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593108246 (epub)
Subjects: CYAC: Family life–Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)–Fiction. | Gays--Fiction. | High schools--Fiction. | Schools–Fiction. | Iranian Americans–Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K5362 Dal 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.K5362 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008231
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008232
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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FOR MY FRIENDS, FOR KEEPING ME GOING
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The History of Creation
Zero Point Six Eight Seconds
The Grand Nagus
The Good Table
Hot Beverage Pod Extraction Device
The Most Harrowing Sound in the Universe
Just Hyperbole
Black Shirt Aesthetic
The Taxonomy of Breakfast Foods
Lolly
Catastrophic Hull Breach
Teutonic Punctuality
Iron Goddess of Mercy
Broken Furniture
Molten Nuggets
Big Red Robe
Breakfast for Dinner
Mirror Universe
Kotak Mekhai
Spongebob Squarepants
Family Business
Terribly Pedestrian
Structural Integrity
Evil Bean Conglomerate
The Sportsball-Industrial Complex
Tired Old Queers
A Plasma Conduit
Vertically Gifted People
Across Time and Space
An Overabundance of Food
Quintessential Persian Profession
Mike Progressions
The Visitor
Electromagnetic Radiation
The Second Steepings
In the Golden Light
Full Persian Mother
The Foreskinned Fiddle
Suitably Melancholy
Mental Health Day
The Minutiae of Midfielding Strategy
Holding Him Up
Penile Humiliations
The Prime Meridian
A New Future
Graviton Density
All of You
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
THE HISTORY OF CREATION
The first cut is always the hardest.
“You ready?”
I met Mikaela’s eyes in the mirror.
“Yeah.”
The clippers buzzed to life and growled in my ear as she pushed the teeth through the back of my hair. The curls tickled my neck as they fell to the floor.
It was tradition among the student athletes on Chapel Hill High School’s varsity men’s soccer team (Go Chargers!) to get their hair cut before the first game of the season. It was supposed to promote team unity.
Except I had my internship at Rose City Teas on Sunday when everyone else got their haircuts, so I had to make a separate appointment.
It was my first haircut in two years.
“How high do you want this fade?” Mikaela asked as she neared my ears.
I’d never met Mikaela before, but Landon recommended her. She was beautiful, with brown skin, impeccable box braids, and the brightest smile I’d ever seen.
I shrugged, but I wasn’t sure she could tell from under the plastic cover. “I don’t know,” I said. “What do you think would look best?”
She turned off the clippers and looked at me in the mirror for a second. “Probably something higher for you. Show off these beautiful curls up top.”
“Okay.”
I relaxed and let her turn my head this way and that as she worked, first with clippers and then with a pair of scissors. When she was done, Mikaela took me to the hair-washing station. I guess it wasn’t designed for tall people: I had to scoot my butt to the edge of the chair to fit my head in the basin. But she washed my hair and massaged my scalp (which was just about the nicest thing I had ever felt) and got all the itchy bits off, and then it was back to the chair for styling.
“You use product?”
I shook my head.
She pulled at one of my curls—she hadn’t touched the top, except for a little trimming—and twisted it around her finger.
“Landon said you’re . . . Indian?”
“Iranian. Half.”
“Sorry.” She let the curl fall. “Lucky boy.”
My cheeks warmed.
“Thanks.”
Mikaela squeezed something that smelled like coconuts into her hands and massaged it into my hair. It made it a little shinier but kept it soft. She took one last lock from the very front and pulled it down into my forehead, so it dangled like a little question mark.
“All set.”
I studied myself in the mirror. Instead of my usual messy halo, I had a huge pile of curls up top, but the sides and back of my head faded from super short black hair down to my skin.
I hadn’t seen the sides of my head in years.
I’d never noticed how much my ears stuck out.
“It looks great,” I said, even though I was kind of anxious about my ears. “Really.”
“Yeah it does,” Mikaela said. “Let’s go ring you up.”
Landon was waiting for me up front. He got this big goofy smile on his face when he saw me.
“Wow.”
I smiled and looked down to open the Velcro on my wallet.
“You like it?”
“I really do.”
Landon’s hand brushed mine, and I curled my thumb to trap it. He wove our fingers together and led me out the sliding glass doors.
It was one of Portland’s
perfect fall days, where it was warm enough that you didn’t have to wear your hoodie, but cool enough that it was cozy if you did.
(I had on my hoodie.)
“Isn’t Mikaela the best?”
“Yeah.” I pressed my ear flat against the side of my head with my left hand. “I didn’t realize I had such huge Ferengi ears.”
“Your ears are cute.” He pulled me to a stop and stood on his toes to give me a kiss on the cheek. “But what’s a Ferengi?”
* * *
The first time Landon kissed me, we had eaten at Northwest Dumplings after closing up shop at Rose City, and I’d been nervous, because I’d never kissed anyone before. And at the time, we were still just hanging out. I didn’t go in expecting to kiss him, which is why I made the extremely unfortunate choice of having too many onions at dinner.
When Landon leaned in close, I thought maybe I had something in my teeth. Because I never thought someone like him would want to kiss someone like me.
But then he took my hand. And he said, “Hey. Can I kiss you?”
And I was kind of surprised and amazed, because I really liked Landon, and I really did want him to kiss me.
I wanted my first kiss to be with Landon Edwards.
His lips were warm and soft, and he let them linger against mine. But then I made the mistake of sighing, which blew a noxious cloud of onion breath into his mouth.
He broke the kiss and giggled.
I panicked at first—I thought I had messed everything up—but he smiled at me. He squeezed my hand and said, “That was good. Even with the onions. Can we do it again?”
So we did, and the kissing got even better once we started using our tongues.
But my favorite part was the way Landon looked at me after and said, “You’re beautiful, you know.”
No one had ever called me beautiful before.
“You’re beautiful too.”
* * *
I’d gotten better about food choices since then. And keeping breath mints in my messenger bag.
“Come on. The streetcar should be here.”
But then, as we turned the corner, my stomach dropped.
Chip Cusumano and Trent Bolger were walking down the street, jostling each other and laughing about something.
Cyprian Cusumano was the strangest guy I knew. He used to be kind of mean to me, but ever since the end of sophomore year, he’d turned around and been nicer.
We’d actually become friends.
I mean, it helped that we both played on the Chapel Hill High School varsity men’s soccer team (Go Chargers!). It was the first year on the team for both of us—Chip used to play football in the fall—but we’d both managed to get spots on the varsity squad.
Trent Bolger, on the other hand, was the meanest guy I knew. He’d been picking on me since elementary school.
And yet for some strange reason—some Byzantine logic that defied explanation—Chip and Trent were best friends.
Landon must have noticed it when my shoulders hunched up, because his step faltered. Which is exactly when Chip looked up from his phone and caught my eye.
He looked from me to Landon, and then down at our linked hands, and then back to me.
Chip already knew I was gay—the whole team knew, since I told them at one of our team-building things when training started over the summer—but I was pretty sure Trent did not.
In fact, I was certain Trent did not, because when he saw me and Landon, he looked like Christmas had come early.
“You know those guys?” Landon asked.
“Yeah. From school. I play with the taller one.”
Chip had grown at least an inch over the summer. He was almost as tall as me now, and I had plateaued at six three over the summer.
I kind of hoped I would hit six four eventually.
“Hey, Darius.” Chip grinned at me. Cyprian Cusumano was one of those guys who always seemed to be grinning. He wore a pair of black Adidas joggers—the same kind I wore, with the white stripes down the sides and the tapered calves—and a plain white V-neck T-shirt.
“Hey, Chip.”
“Nice haircut.”
“Thanks. You too.”
Chip always had nice haircuts. He was a Level Eight Influencer at Chapel Hill High School: Whatever haircut he got, about half the guys in our class ended up doing some variation of it. Now that he was doing the Standard Soccer Team Fade, though, I wasn’t sure what everyone else would do.
“Oh. Chip, this is my—”
The thing is, Landon and I hadn’t talked about whether we were officially boyfriends. Even if it felt like we kind of were.
How did you ask a guy if you were officially boyfriends?
“This is Landon. Landon, Chip. And that’s Trent.”
Trent was hanging back, playing with his phone. He wore a crimson sweatshirt that read PROPERTY OF CHHS VARSITY FOOTBALL—he’d finally made the varsity team this year, as a something-back—and a pair of black swishy shorts.
Chip was still grinning, but he looked Landon up and down. Almost like he was judging him. “Nice to meet you.” He held out his fist.
Landon blinked for a second and then bumped his own with Chip’s.
It was the most awkward fist bump in the history of creation.
“Well,” I squeaked. I cleared my throat. “We’ve gotta catch the streetcar. See you later?”
Chip bumped fists with me too. “Yeah. See you.”
I stepped to the side so he and Trent could make it past us and tightened my grip on Landon’s hand.
“Later, Dairy Queen,” Trent said.
Great.
ZERO POINT SIX EIGHT SECONDS
Rose City Teas was in the Northwest District, a couple stops down the streetcar line from Mikaela’s salon. It was a brick building with ivy growing up one side, and a little wooden sign hanging over the door. Big windows made up one wall, with the shades half-drawn against the afternoon sun. In the corner, shelves of tea tins lined one wall, and opposite it, the tasting bar was packed with afternoon customers.
Rose City Teas was a dream come true.
Landon’s dad waved from the door to the tasting room, wiped his hands on the towel he always kept over his shoulder, and came to greet us.
He squeezed Landon’s shoulder—he and Landon had never hugged each other in front of me, which I thought was kind of weird—and then squeezed mine too.
“Hey, son. Looking sharp, Darius. How’re you doing?”
“Thanks, Mr. E. I’m okay. How about you?”
“B-plus, A-minus,” he said with a wink.
Elliott Edwards had the same gray eyes as his son. And the same auburn hair, though his thick eyebrows and well-kept beard were more brownish. And I couldn’t say for sure, but I suspected that underneath his beard he had the same excellent cheekbones as Landon too.
Landon Edwards had television cheekbones. They were angular and beautiful and always looked like he was blushing. Just a tiny bit.
“I thought you were going to Darius’s tonight?”
“I am,” Landon said.
We were still holding hands.
I really liked holding Landon’s hand.
“We were close. Thought we might as well stop by.”
“Well, perfect timing. Come try this. Polli, can you handle things?”
Polli was one of the managers at Rose City. She was an older white lady—probably about my grandmothers’ age—who always wore all black except for her scarves, which were wildly colorful, and her glasses, which were huge neon-yellow squares.
She seemed like the kind of person who should have been a judge on some kind of reality show. Or owned an antique bookshop, where she catalogued and dispensed esoteric knowledge while sipping espressos from tiny cups.
Polli waved at us and kept talking to a custom
er about the benefits of local honey.
Mr. Edwards led us into the tasting room, a small room partitioned from the main dining room by a frosted glass wall with the Rose City logo etched into it. The table was set with a row of gaiwans, full of damp, bright green leaves; and in front of those, tasting cups full of steaming emerald liquor.
“Here.” He handed us both ceramic spoons. I let Landon go first, dipping his spoon into each cup one by one and slurping up the tea. It was a robust, grassy green.
“Oh, wow,” I said when I tasted the third one, which had this burst of something—maybe fruity?—on the finish.
Mr. E’s eyebrows danced. “Right? Any guesses?”
“Hm.” I tasted number four, but number three was definitely the best. “Gyokuro?”
Gyokuro was a green tea from Japan, famous for being shaded for three weeks before plucking, which made it taste sweeter and smoother.
“Close. It’s Kabusecha.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like Gyokuro but with only a week of shading.”
“Oh.”
I took another slurp of number three.
“It’s awesome.”
Mr. Edwards smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Are you gonna get some?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Too pricey to be worth it.”
“Oh.”
One of the things I’d learned from interning at Rose City was, sometimes the best teas weren’t the most practical for a business.
I guess I understood that.
“You want the rest?” He grabbed a paper pouch covered in Japanese writing.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thanks!”
“All right,” Landon said. “We’d better go. Pick me up at nine?”
“Sure. Have fun. Make smart choices. Be safe.”
“Don’t be weird.”
Mr. Edwards just laughed as Landon led me out.
* * *
Dad’s car was gone when I punched in the code to the garage door.
I untied my black Sambas and stuck them in the shoe rack while the door rumbled shut behind us.
