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Callum is behind him in the doorway, in a hoodie, with his hands in his pockets.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.

We barely look at each other the rest of the night. The four feet of distance I maintain all evening is deliberate. I know what his hands feel like now and four feet is the minimum safe distance at which I can continue to function as a person. What if those hands were on another woman right after?

Drew, at least, is unfazed by anything. He has folded himself onto our couch like he lives here and is telling Ashley about football with such confidence. I wonder if he’s ever felt out of place anywhere.

“Drinks,” Sydney announces. “We need drinks. Bea, help me with drinks.”

“Sex on the beach, if you’re taking orders,” Luca calls after her.

“Coming right up!” Sydney sings, without turning around.

I follow her into the kitchen gratefully, because the kitchen is away from Callum and away from Luca’s knowing look and away from the general overwhelming fact of my two worlds occupying the same front room.

“Oh my God,” Sydney whispers, the second we’re through the door. “Oh my God, Bea.”

“I know.”

“There is half of Atlas Falling in our house.”

“I’m aware.”

“And I just promised him a sex on the beach. What’s in a sex on the beach? Peach schnapps. Vodka. Orange juice. Cranberry.” She’s opening cupboards as she lists them. “We have none of those things. We have—” She stops. “Oh shit. Emergency UTI cranberry. UTI cranberry and vodka. That’s basically a sex on the beach.”

“That’s a vodka cran.”

“Sex on the riverbed, then. Sex on the…concrete? Look. It’s less exciting but still sex in a public place right?”

“Sex in the ocean?”

“Sex in the ocean. He’s getting a sex in the ocean and he’s going to like it.” She turns around. “How do I look? Don’t tell me. I look insane, my face is a disaster! How do I look?”

She's wearing a glittery lip gloss and her nails, as always, are hot pink.

“You look great.” I smack her arm. “Get the cups.”

* * *

Luca is funny in a way that includes everyone. He asks Sydney about her major and listens while she blabbers on about the stars and how hard the physics classes are. He gets Ashley talking about the dance company she’s choreographing for. He gets Gianna talking about her breakup and somehow, within seven questions, has her laughing about the exact thing she’s been intermittently crying over. When he asks her major, she says she’s still deciding. Luca says deciding sounds like a great major and he’d have majored in it himself.

He’s good at this. Not in the polished way Cal is, where half the room knows exactly who he is before he’s even opened his mouth. Luca makes people feel like he’s been waiting all night to hear whatever they have to say.

“So what happens with the band now?” Sydney asks. “Are you all, like, broken up?”

“Temporarily separated,” Luca says. “Like a married couple who can’t afford the divorce lawyers.”

Cal takes a drink.

“But we’ll be reunited soon,” Luca continues, slinging an arm around Drew’s shoulders. “Cal finishes his little college side quest, comes back to LA, and then the four of us are together forever.”

I look at Cal.

“Back in LA?”

His eyes flick to mine.