“Oh, sure.” Tessa gave a very serious nod. “Informational like a question about ring sizes is informational.”
Khai’s lips quirked. “That a hint?”
She turned a full, beautiful smile on him. “Nah, I’m not subtle enough for hints. Also, when the time comes, who says you’ll be the one proposing?”
His eyebrows did a brief, elegant salute, pleased in an understated way. “Noted,” he said.
“Aww.” I made it sugary sweet, my grin dripping syrup. “And they say romance is dead.”
“You have exactly no leg to stand on, Mr. Dating-the-Hot-Boss,” Tessa informed me, mouth twitching.
“He’s not my boss,” I said.
“Anymore,” Khai said.
“Oh, hey.” Tessa grabbed for her phone and opened our shared note. “New category ‘coffee confessions’— done. Finn, what’s the verdict?”
I steepled my fingers together like a connoisseur. “Ten out of ten,” I said. “Would spill again.”
Tessa’s laugh bounced like pebbles against a window, mixing with Khai’s quieter, deeper chuckle. I tucked a smile into my coffee, my chest as wide as a country sky on a summer morning.
New York still didn’t feel like home, no. But these people did.
Shane
III. August
Hastings-on-Hudson felt like someone had taken a New England town, given it a train line, and said,boom, instant suburb chic. Pretty? Yes. Green? Yes. Expensive as hell? Absolutely. It was the kind of place where even the dogs went to “therapy.”
Weirdly, I could see Jesse here. Him and Finn both.
Jesse’s apartment came with its own ground-level entry, modest but tidy. I’d already teased him about it when I’d helped with a few tasks shortly after he’d moved in—installing lamps, getting some pictures up on the walls. “Your own hobbit door! What’s next—a golden retriever?”This time, I came armed with a bottle of Riesling.
“I’m a man of taste!” I declared when he opened the door.
“Evidently.” He waved me in, feet bare and grin loose as he took the bottle from me. “Hi. Come on through.”
The place still smelled faintly of paint—sky blue in the bedroom, a sunny shade of peach in the kitchen. Past the small entryway, glass doors opened to a patio with a patch of garden the listing had described as “promising.” Finn darted into our path with a refilled pitcher of water, curls humid, nose pink from the sun. He spotted me and brightened, earnest and a little cheeky, the way I’d come to know him.
“You made it!” He sounded like I’d won a spelling bee. “Napkins are folded and everything. Please be impressed.”
“Swans?” I asked.
He flashed a smile at me. “More like capsized sailboats, honestly.”
Jesse and I followed him outside at a slightly slower pace, where I exchanged the wine for a bottle of beer. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, the day’s heat trickling away like syrup as crickets warmed up for the night shift. Tired concrete tiles made up the terrace, gaping wider in one corner where some ambitious weed had forced its way out. Someone had planted a row of different shrubs along the back brick wall—Finn, clearly, because Jesse had only ever managed to keep one single plant alive in the time I’d known him. A citronella candle tried to keep mosquitoes away.
“Everyone,” Jesse announced to the group already gathered near the grill. “This is Shane. Former roommate, elementary school teacher, all-around great guy who saved my sanity more than once. Shane—that’s Tessa and Khai. Same residency year as Finn.” He pointed at a woman with pink hair and a guy who looked like this was his first garden party in the suburbs and he’d decided to find it charming.
Khai shook my hand, Tessa pulled me into a hug like she’d known me for years. “Heard good things,” she told me. “And any friend of Finn’s is a friend of mine.”
“Hear, hear,” Finn commented around the neck of his beer bottle, smirk a mile wide.
“Tay and Dean you’ve already met,” Jesse continued, pointing at them, and yes, I had. It had been a relaxed pub night a few weeks ago, and I’d liked them—Tay was easy and charming, Dean a little more restrained in a way that I read as introverted rather than unfriendly.
“How’s it going?” I asked, and Tay grinned.
“Still processing that we’ve hit the age where people disperse to the suburbs, you know?”
