"Hey, Roz."
"Hey, girl, hey. You owe me some serious T."
Before Ivy could answer, the doorbell rang. Ivy frowned, wiped her hands on her jeans, and went to the door.
"Eva."
Her cousin stood on the step looking as if she'd come straight from somewhere that had required her to be put-together. Her dark hair was half out of whatever it had been pinned into, and she was carrying a tote bag that clinked when she moved in a way that suggested she had brought provisions.
"I brought wine," Eva said, "and the good chocolate. Move."
Ivy moved.
Eva was through the door and setting the tote on the counter and pulling things out of it.
"Who's that?" Roz called from the phone.
"Eva, meet Roz," Ivy held up the phone. "Roz, this is my cousin Eva."
Roz, on the screen, looked Eva up and down with the attention of someone conducting a rapid assessment. Eva lookedback at the phone with the attention of someone who recognized a rapid assessment when she saw one and was conducting her own.
"You brought the good chocolate?" Roz asked.
"Seventy percent dark," Eva said. "None of that milk chocolate nonsense."
"I like her," Roz said immediately to Ivy. "She can stay."
Eva set a bar of chocolate on the counter then pulled out a bottle of wine — the good kind— and set it beside the chocolate and looked at Ivy with her arms crossed and her head tilted in the way that meant start talking or I start asking questions. But Roz beat her to it.
"I was calling for a wellness check," Roz told Eva. "She hasn't posted in two days."
"I was busy winning a food truck rally," Ivy said.
There was a beat. Then?—
"You what?" asked Roz.
"You haven't told her yet?" Eva took a seat at the island, already reaching for the corkscrew like she lived there.
"I was going to," Ivy said.
Roz made a sound that was somewhere between a scream and a laugh. “Start from the beginning."
Ivy started measuring. It was easier to talk when her hands were doing something. The kitchen was her preferred confessional. She pulled the flour toward her. Reached for the sugar.
Eva had already migrated from the island to the counter without being asked. She looked at the produce laid out — the tomatoes, the herbs, the things Ivy had pulled without a clear plan yet — and started sorting with the instinctive logic of someone who had grown up in the same grandmother's kitchen and learned the same rhythms.
"Cutting board?" Eva asked.
"Left cabinet, second shelf."
Eva found it without needing a second look. Ivy started measuring. Eva started prepping the produce. Roz filled the space with commentary from the phone, her voice bright and relentless and grounding all at once.
"So," Roz said, "you won. With him."
Ivy couldn’t stop the grin. "We won.”
"How does that feel?" Roz asked.
