At a sweltering book club a few weeks earlier, Asher had flaunted his bare chest. Ivan had said his scars looked badass and had asked whether Asher had pictures of his old chest. Asher had tried to joke his way out of it but finally had shared his single photo, snapped minutes before he went under anesthesia, in a panic that he’d forget his old self. Ivan had tipped his head back as though the picture had spat on him. “Shit, dude. That’s so not you.” He handed the phone back, having already clicked away, cheeks shiny with gratitude. “What you’re doing is amazing.” Asher’s groin burned. So Ivan did like him. So there was a chance.

“The hell is this?” Dilly turned the slim booklet over in her spidery hands.

“The last queer feminist text in human existence.” Asher’s heart battered his throat.

“Really?” Dilly narrowed her eyes so the freckles on her eyelids showed.

“Yes,” Asher said. “Definitively.”

“But it’s unpublished,” said Dilly.

“Did you write this?” Ivan raised an eyebrow.

“You know I’m not a writer.”

Ivan flicked the imageless cover. “Cheerful Until Next Time. That’s so you though.”

Asher’s skin tightened. Whatever Ivan meant, at least he was thinking about Asher.

“Make a case for this, Asher, sweetie,” Dilly said. “Before we waste our time on some zine.”

“It’s not a zine,” Asher said. “It’s one continuous piece. Full of mysteries, riddles, and the stuff of life.”

Ivan honked out a genuine laugh. Dilly peeled open the first page.

“Stop,” Asher said. “Don’t read it.”

“Why?” Mercifully, Dilly let the volume snap shut.

Sweat stuck in Asher’s hairline. He’d been certain the intrigue of the booklet would suffice. Who wouldn’t be curious about the fifteen folded pages, bound with covers cut from grocery bags, the interior typed and stapled up the spine, still reeking of photocopier ink? Asher had printed it in the department late at night, when the administrator wouldn’t poke in and awkwardly flirt—proving she was progressive by accepting him as male. All the time he’d formatted and copied and folded and stapled, he’d imagined Ivan reading it and falling in love. “It’s not the kind of thing you want to read around other people.”

“You mean it’s sexually explicit?” Dilly asked, in her favorite sultry voice.

“More than you can imagine,” said Asher. “Now I gotta kick you guys out. I have class prep.” He couldn’t stand it if the group thumbed through the booklets in front of him, Dilly reading a line out loud, Hera chuckling. And Ivan—no. His plan could only work if Ivan absorbed the content alone.