Page 71 of We Are Just Us

RORY NEIGHBOR: Save me some cheese

KIERAN: Only if I don’t eat it all first.

He threw the phone into his pocket, gave himself one last look in the mirror, acceptable, probably, and headed out.

The Basswood Collective was exactly what Vera had described. A converted warehouse tucked behind a row of shops on Vulcan, no signage, no tourist map listing. You had to know it existed to find it.

Kieran almost walked past it twice.

Inside, Elena Marchetti’s installation transformed the space. Light refracted through water, casting shifting patterns across the concrete walls. Ambient and oceanic music hummed beneath the conversation. People moved through slowly, reverently, the way you did when art worked.

Kieran grabbed a glass of wine from the table near the entrance and wandered. He found himself pausing in front of a piece where light moved like water across a rough concrete wall—slow, almost tidal—and thought, Rory would like this one. The thought arrived before he could stop it, easy and automatic.

Vera spotted him within minutes.

“You came,” she said, appearing at his elbow. “And you brought an open mind. I can tell.”

“How can you tell?”

“You’re not on your phone.” She clinked her glass against his. “That’s half the battle.”

They walked through the installation together, Vera narrating who Elena was, how she built the light rigs, which pieces took months versus which came together in a single manic weekend. Kieran listened, asked questions, let himself get absorbed in it. It helped. Gave the restless part of his brain somewhere else to go besides the door.

By eight-thirty, he’d made a full loop through the space and was starting to check his phone more than he wanted to admit.

Nothing from Rory.

He told himself it was just the traffic. Traffic was unpredictable. Meetings ran long. It didn’t mean anything.

He was refilling his wine when a hand settled on his shoulder.

“Hey.”

Kieran turned, and there was Rory, slacks rumpled, hair windblown, looking like he’d jogged from wherever he parked. He was wearing a navy shirt Kieran hadn’t seen before, and his cheeks were flushed.

“You made it,” Kieran said.

“Barely.” Rory glanced around, taking in the installation. “This is cool.”

“It’s amazing. Come on, I’ll show you.”

They walked through the space together, shoulders brushing occasionally. Kieran pointed out the pieces Vera had explained to him. He was now the narrator, he realized. Playing tour guide. Talking too much the way he did when he was nervous about silence.

But Rory didn’t seem to mind. He asked the same questions Kieran had, and he looked at things the way he looked at the ocean, letting them in instead of just observing.

Eventually, they ended up near the back, watching light ripple across a wall in slow, hypnotic waves.

“Thanks for coming,” Kieran said quietly.

Rory looked at him. “Of course.”

“I know you had a long day.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Rory’s hand found the small of Kieran’s back, brief and warm. “I wanted to be here.”

Kieran let himself lean into it. Barely.

“Rory?”