“I’m a grown-up!” Michal pokes her wife in the side with her elbow. “I have very serious opinions about washing machines.”
The buzzer blares again, and I nearly trip over Haze on my way to let the next round of people in. I rescue the black cat from getting trapped underfoot by carrying him around for the next twenty minutes, at least until he decides he’s sick of me and launches out of my arms to go hide on top of his cat tree. Shannon texts me at some point to make sure I’m still sober. I finally made myself message her again after the summer program ended, resurrecting our friendship from the graveyard of all the ones I’d abandoned or trashed. I’ll never stop being proud to text back100% well and with it.
There are enough people here that I don’t even hear the bell ring for Ophelia and Diego’s arrival. Someone else must let them in, because out of nowhere Diego barrels into me and flings both arms around my neck.
“My dear,” he says, “you were phenomenal.”
“Sorry we’re late,” adds Ophelia.
“Fashionably!” Diego says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, it was mostly Ophelia’s fault. This is what happens when you go cheap on glitter eyeliner, dear; you have to redo your makeup about fifteen hundred times to make it look right.”
“It was notfifteen hundred—”
“But who knows? Maybe you can afford nicer stuff now that you actually got paid. Or you can, like, cover all three of our rents. I dunno, just an idea!”
“I saw your ad on the way here,” I say, and dig out my phone toflip through the photos until I find the one I snapped of the gin ad on the subway, Ophelia’s illustration so gorgeous and perfect that I honestly can’t believe I know the actual human who created it.
“A banger,” Diego says approvingly. “Ophelia Desmond, corporate artist. Now do more and hire me as a personal assistant. I hate my job anyway.”
“Didn’t you just get a new job?” asks Wyatt, who doesn’t know Diego well enough yet to know any better. “Aren’t you literally working for the mayor?”
“Like I said. I hate my job.”
“You spent all of last night going on about how fulfilling it is to be in a position to make an actual difference, and the mayor is chill and secretly socialist, there’s a flavored seltzer machine in the break room, and the girl at the desk next to you looks like a young Barbra Streisand,” I remind him. “You drank three martinis and monologued about it for like ten straight minutes.”
“And?”
The party goes on pretty late considering it’s a dry event and everyone is living it up on seltzer and nonalcoholic beer alone. Once it’s over, Wyatt and I lie on the living room rug, fingers laced together atop Wyatt’s thigh, as Haze walks across our bellies.
“I hope it’s like this forever,” I say, eyes half-lidded.
Wyatt squeezes my hand, and I exhale long and slow. A damp cat nose nudges my cheek.
“It won’t be,” says Wyatt. “Bad days always come. But we can try.” His thumb rubs the back of my hand. “We can fight for it.”
I turn my face toward him and open my eyes. He’s already looking at me, the amber lights from the street outside glowing gold on his skin. I lean over and kiss him, his stubble scratching against my jaw. I don’t know what time it is, except that it’s past three, and as exhausted as my body feels, my mind still tilts helplessly toward his.
“I love you,” I say again because it deserves to be said again. It deserves to be said a million times.
His mouth smiles against mine, and I draw my phone out of my back pocket and take a photo of us. I’ll keep tonight for a lifetime.
