Page 102 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

“It’s algebra,” they grumble, picking themselves up from the floor.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m excellent at math.”

“Really?”

Eli snorts. “No, not one bit. But we can figure it out. Google is free.”

Les sits at the coffee table, pulling out their notebook and flipping to the appropriate pages as Eli sinks onto the floor next to them. It’s not the night he wants, stuck babysitting his little sibling while his parents have their own date night, but Les’s typical babysitter had to pull out at the last minute, and Rue had been talking for weeks about the fashion exhibit at SFMOMA that Patricia had gotten tickets for.

Eli looks over Les’s shoulder at the problems they’re expected to work out, marveling at just how much he’s managed to forget after not being in a math class for years.

“Do you think I did this right?” they ask.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” He’s talking to them as much as he’s asking himself. “Isn’t there an answer key in the back of the book?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, give me a second,” Eli tells them as he begins to copy the problem into Google on his laptop to see if anyone has solved the same problems.

“Isn’t this cheating?” Les asks.

“Don’t worry, chances are very high that you’ll never be doing this kind of math as an adult.”

“So, you’re saying I shouldn’t care about school?”

“No!” Eli sort of shouts without meaning to. “You should try in school, always. Give it one hundred percent of your effort.”

Les smiles. “But you just said that—”

“And look at where not caring about math has gotten me,” he says. “I’m an assistant. Do you want to be an assistant?”

“Not really, no offense.”

He can’t help but smile at them. “None taken. Do your homework.” Eli scrolls through the results on his search, thanking whatever God might be up in the clouds when he finds an entire PDF of the textbook’s answer keys. Despite Les’s pleading to just let them copy all the answers, Eli remains firm, only using the answer key to check Les’s work behind them.

“Okay, yeah . . .” Eli’s eyes bounce back and forth from the textbook to the laptop. “I think you’ve got everything.” Though the work that Les has shown is complete gibberish to him.

He doesn’t even notice the text bubble that appears in the corner of his screen.

“Someone texted you,” Les says, leaning forward. “Can I see it?”

“What?” Eli turns his screen away from them to read the text.

Peter: How’s your night going?

Eli leaves it unanswered.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

“Why do you care?” Eli asks.

“Because Mom’s been talking about how you haven’t introduced us to him.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Eli swallows, cutting himself off without a point to be made.

“Is he nice?”

Eli dares to spare his half sibling a glance before he turns back to their homework. “He’s very nice.”