“You don’t drink coffee.”
“I’m developing a taste.”
“For the coffee,” Luca says, “or the girl who pours it?”
Niko looks at him for a long moment. “The coffee.”
“He hesitated,” Theo stage-whispers to Sloane.
“I did not hesitate.”
“You hesitated,” Sloane says.
Niko turns the full weight of his deadpan on her, which only makes her grin. He picks up his beer and refuses to say another word — which, from Niko, is as good as a confession that he’s into the girl.
“We’ll revisit,” Luca tells the table, and lets him go.
The conversation continues in pieces, quieter now as people eat. The whole time, Sloane keeps her hand on my leg. I notice Seb’s phone light up on the table; he reads it and puts it back down, screen-down, his expression carefully blank.
Sloane asks Mason for the last of the garlic bread — cold now, gone hard at the edges. He hands it to her, easy enough, but hiseyes follow her. I tense a little, but a second later, he’s already grinning at something Theo said.
He’s been the Mason I remember from sophomore year all night, and maybe I’ve been carrying him as a problem when he’s just been a teammate having a couple of dumb months. I let it go, and my shoulders drop.
The knot I’ve been carrying since he got here — gone.
And it’s good, just breathing.
After dinner, people start drifting. Theo and Ivy migrate to the living room couch, still at it, their voices carrying through the wall. Mason folds himself into the armchair by the window with a fresh beer.
Seb checks his phone one more time, then pockets it and carries a stack of plates toward the kitchen without a word. I clock it — the set of his jaw, his refusal to look back — and as he goes, I catch Ivy’s eyes following him out.
Behind us, the night winds down, and Sloane leans into my side.
“You okay?” she says, quieter.
“Yeah.”
She studies my face. “You’re being quiet.”
“Happy’s quiet for me, apparently.”
Her mouth pulls up on one side before the rest of it commits. She tucks herself under my arm, and around us the room keeps going. She fits into the space between my jaw and my collarbone, and her hand finds mine in my lap and laces our fingers.
“I like your friends,” she says.
“They like you.”
“Ivy likes me.”
“Ivy loves you. There’s a difference.”
She laughs.
I hold still — nothing to straighten, nothing to fix — just this.
Across the room, Mason tips his beer back. When Sloane laughs at something Theo says, his eyes find her and stay half a beat past casual. A month ago I’d have filed that, logged it, added it to the list of things I watch. Tonight I let that go too, because tonight everything is finally easy.
twenty
