Love's Awakening by Stuart Kelly Page A

Snickers is your favorite.”
    Celia could not help but smile. When she and David dated, David would bring her Snickers bars with red ribbons. So—David had cared enough to tell Sebastian. “Thank you,” Celia said. “You want half?”
    A broad grin. “Brought my own. Several, actually.” He reached into his messenger bag and sprinkled ten bars of various permutations—almond, peanut butter, and such—on the table. “I remembered Snickers was your favorite because it’s my husband’s favorite, too.”
    “You’re married?”
    Sebastian nodded. “Matthew and I have an open marriage. We married thirty years ago, long before I accepted I was a man.”
    Celia nibbled on her bar. Her routine was to eat the top chocolate layer first, then the chocolate on the sides, then the peanut and caramel layer. Last but not least, she would devour the nougat and bottom chocolate layer. “So your husband stayed with you,” she said.
    “We had a rough couple of years, but we worked it out. I was forty-four when I told him and our kids. I was forty-five when I started hormones. Forty-six when I had the surgeries. So, I’ve been Sebastian for ten years.” He smiled. “Never been happier.”
    “You look forty. At the most.”
    Sebastian bit off a big chunk of Snickers. “I know! It’s fantastic.”
    “Were your kids okay?”
    “Pretty much. Matthew and I played it cool. If we didn’t make a huge deal out of it, the kids wouldn’t think it was a huge deal.”
    Celia nodded. “Makes sense. It was sweet of Oliver to set this up. How did you meet him?”
    “We met two years ago in class. I hit on him. He laughed and said no way, he only liked the fairer type. We clicked and became fast friends.”
    Celia blinked. “Oh. So the open marriage, it goes both ways? It’s not just for your husband.”
    Sebastian nodded. “Right, yeah. I tell you what. I’m lucky that Oliver’s as straight as they come. I wouldn’t trade our friendship for anything.”
    “That…that’s good.”
    “David talked about you a lot.”
    “How did you meet him?”
    “Oliver and I partnered for a complicated project on taxes. Oliver said his father was a tax attorney and could help us. And he did, a hell of a lot. I took your husband out to a thank-you lunch, and Matthew came. Oliver too.”
    Celia continued eating the Snickers. She vaguely remembered David mentioning the project.
    “After lunch, David told Oliver that Matthew didn’t seem gay.” Sebastian chuckled. “Whatever gay seems like. Oliver told David the whole sordid story, that Matthew was a straight man married to a transgender. Fine with me. I don’t hide I used to be a woman. My past is part of who I am.”
    “David should have told me. I would have tried to understand.”
    “You’re right. She should have.”
    “She.”
    A grin. “She. Yeah.”
    “Why didn’t he tell—” Celia stopped. She swallowed, the pronoun s he a blister on her tongue. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
    “She’d rejected herself. You’d reject her, too. Or so she thought.”
    “Did David have a female name picked out?”
    A shadow crossed Sebastian’s expression. “She did, actually. Karen Alice Hall.”
    “Karen Alice Hall.” Celia pictured her husband as a Karen Alice—wavy blond wig, fake eyelashes, giant boobs, green shimmery dress.
    “She would’ve looked good,” Sebastian said mournfully.
    *****
    Oliver was glad he had set up a meeting with Sebastian. Sebastian and Celia talked easily, and three was definitely not a crowd. Oliver, Celia and Sebastian chatted for an hour. Not about David, though. They talked about Oliver’s and Sebastian’s MBA program, sports and politics.
    At five o’clock, Sebastian got up to meet his family for dinner. “Sebastian’s nice,” Celia said after he left.
    Oliver replied with a small smile. Celia sat next to him; Sebastian had been across from them.
    Celia was lovely today. Okay, hell, she was lovely every day, and Oliver had struggled the