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This has been eating at him for a while.

I sit there long enough that it gets awkward for the both of us. So I just nod and get out.

I’m all the way inside before I work out that he apologized for how he’s treated me, but said absolutely nothing about his hands on my face under that streetlight.

Luca turns twenty-one on Tuesday, and all that anyone has planned is a couple of drinks at the cafe after it closes, which strikes me as a waste of a milestone.

When I ask Marthe about a party, she seems sad. “My baby’s an adult. Where did the time go?”

She lets me convince her to close the cafe at six, and I order a cake from the bakery. Then I spend far too long standing in the party aisle of the grocery store choosing between blue and green streamers, and realize I volunteered to organize a whole birthday party for someone I’ve only known a few weeks, and maybe I’ve overstepped. Maybe I’m still that girl who sees a gap and fills it. I pick the green streamers and get out of the store.

There are thirty people crowded in the cafe by half past six. Pete brings his hot dog casserole, which nobody asked for. Jack hands Luca a socket set wrapped in newspaper when he steps through the door, and Dustin arrives late in scrubs, Isaac on his hip. As soon as he sets him on the ground, he jams his fist into some frosting. One of the Thomas girls, Amie or Darcy—I’m not sure which because I haven’t worked out how to tell them apart yet—gives him a green circuit board about the size of a credit card, and they immediately have an argument that I understand none of.

Luca stands on a chair and thanks everyone individually, by name, for showing up, and declares cake for all. Marthe brings it out, covered in candles, and everybody sings.

“Twenty-one!” Pete says in a booming voice that feels more like a looming cloud than a celebration.

Roslyn raises her glass first, and everyone follows.

Later, I’m cleaning up when Marthe catches Luca by the sleeve.

“Have you given it any thought?”

“Nope.”

I stack the plates slower than I need to.

“Luca.”

“I’m twenty-one, Mom. As of four hours ago.” He kisses the top of her head because he’s taller than her, and it makes her smile every time. “Ask me in a decade.”

Marthe watches him go.

“My girls do that,” Lloyd says from the next table. “Never met a question they couldn’t put off till spring.”

Nick hasn’t moved from the end of the counter all night. There’s a bottle of something at his elbow, untouched.

“Hey.” I bump his arm. “Think Luca liked it?”

“He loved it.” His eyes slide around the room, land on Roslyn, then back to me. “You did all this?”

“I made a list. The town did this.”

He nods slowly. “Thanks.”

The days grow shorter. Later sunrises, earlier sunsets, shrinking the light from both ends. The sky is often cloudy, drowning out the last rays much earlier still, and the temperatures plunged in the first week of November. Tess took me shopping, and I’m set now, with thermals and proper boots and a hat that covers my ears.

Nick tells me we’re running two tours a night, one early and one late, because Kendall’s in Anchorage helping her grandmother move into assisted living, and we’re covering her bookings. Marthe gives me a pass from the cafe, but reserves the right to call me in if she’s desperate.

So now, it’s the two of us, twice a night, sailing through the dark.

I give the same welcome and tell the same stories so many times I’ve developed an accent. A Southern belle with molasses in her mouth. Where she came from is anybody’s guess.

One night, halfway down the mountain, he pulls over. He doesn’t say anything, eases the van onto the shoulder, cutting the engine and the headlights. The dark comes down.

“Nick?”

He’s already opening his door.