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“I’m sorry,” Jasper said quietly. He downed the rest of his moonshine and grimaced as it blazed down his throat. “I’m just… overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do.”

Konrad took a far more modest sip of his own, then said, “You don’t have to know tonight. This isn’t something you can ignore, but perhaps it is something you can think about more tomorrow and the days after, after giving yourself some time to process.”

“Do you want to walk down to the lake with me?”

The question made Konrad blink, confused by the abrupt change in subject, but he nodded. “You should dress warmly, there’s a chill in the evening and it will be colder still on the water.”

Simple as that.

As always.

Jasper didn’t deserve him, but he wanted to. He wanted to be as good to Konrad as Konrad was to him.

Dragging him out into the cold wasn’t a great start, but it was a work in progress. Jasper gathered blankets and they both put their coats on, leaving a line of very disappointed dogs that wanted to follow, but Jasper just wanted to be with Konrad for awhile. He knew the way by heart, following the path he’d trampled down over many days and nights since he’d moved in, even in stretches of darkness where the moonlight didn’t reach.

Fireflies buzzed lazily around the lake shore, barely dispersing when Jasper and Konrad approached. Jasper spread out two blankets, one on top of the other to create a barrier against the cold ground, and kept the last one for them to lie under. He stretched out on his back under the last blanket, holding it up for Konrad to join him. Konrad lay down at his side and watched the fireflies with him. Jasper was warm from the moonshine and his own naturally elevated body temperature, but he knew Konrad had barely drunk any, so he slid over until his shoulder was pressed against Konrad’s, sharing his heat.

Tiny yellow lights flickered on and off all around them. Konrad turned his head to the side to look at him, and Jasper did the same, finding Konrad’s hand under the blanket to lock their fingers together. He leaned in, his nose brushing against Konrad’s cold cheek. Konrad closed the distance and let Jasper kiss him until his lips were warm.

Anyone in their right mind would tell Jasper to take the job in New York, that he was a fool to consider giving it up just for more nights of cold hands and fireflies. Not so long ago, he would have agreed with them.

They went back to the house once even Jasper started to shiver, and warmed up by the space heater until they could stand to shed their clothes and go to bed. Jasper read from Les Miserables until Konrad fell asleep. They’d still been making steady progress, however little it looked that way when his bookmark was moving so slowly through the massive tome.

He put it aside when he noticed Konrad’s eyes had fallen shut, but Jasper didn’t reach for the lamp right away, instead taking a moment to watch the slow rise and fall of Konrad’s chest under the quilt. The same one they’d shared the first time Konrad came to his house, when Jasper fell asleep watching Andy Griffith reruns with him.

Jasper had been so determined not to get too close then. What a pointless endeavor that had turned out to be.

He pulled the chain for the lamp and curled up to Konrad, the dogs piled around them, their mismatched little family. The longer the night became, the harder it was for Jasper to think about going to New York. He knew he owed it to himself, to his career, to give it serious thought, but what could a couple of extra days off give him that even remotely compared to this?

Shariah organized a surprise party for Hiyori, to celebrate her move and to thank her for her years of managing Blackwing Tattoo. She recruited everyone, including Konrad, who provided the venue. The party was just three days after Hiyori told Jasper about the opening in New York, and he was tasked with luring Hiyori to the restaurant, which was easy enough to do without raising suspicion since it was so unlike Jasper to entertain attending a party, never mind helping organize one. So Hiyori didn’t give it a second thought when he asked if she wanted to go with him to try a new dish Konrad had been working on.

The restaurant was empty until they were inside. Then everyone sprung up from behind the bar—Shariah, Lawrence, James, River, and of course, Amara.

“Surprise!” they yelled, horribly out of sync.

“What is all this about?” Hiyori laughed, opening her arms as her wife came to her for a hug.

Konrad came out of the kitchen, carrying the prettiest cake Jasper had ever seen. Chocolate with handmade buttercream icing. “It’s a celebration of a woman we’re all better for knowing,” Konrad said.

Hiyori put her hand over her mouth. She turned around, but not before Jasper saw her eyes shining. Amara whispered something and Hiyori hugged her tighter.

Jasper’s eyes went instinctively to Konrad, who was already looking at him. He couldn’t quite decipher Konrad’s expression, but it was so tender it almost didn’t feel suited to company. Konrad put the cake down and approached him while Hiyori let herself be picked up and spun around by Shariah, both of them laughing as they cried.

“You look fucking amazing,” Jasper whispered to him.

He really did. Konrad was wearing ivory slacks and a matching suit jacket, open over a black dress shirt with the top button undone. “As do you, my darling. I’m particularly fond of that cardigan.”

Jasper ducked his head with a smile, his tongue pressing against the inside of his snakebites. He’d worn it the first night they had dinner. “Thank you for doing this,” he said, loosely wrapping his fingers around Konrad’s. He could feel eyes on them but he’d long since stopped feeling the urge to pull away when people were watching.

“You know I would do anything for you.” Konrad kissed his forehead, running a thumb across Jasper’s knuckles. “Besides, Hiyori is a friend.”

They all had cake and then toasted with champagne, making a unanimous, unspoken decision to give Hiyori the benefit of pretending she wasn’t crying as Shariah gave the toast. She asked if anyone else wanted to say anything, and James added a few words of his own, mostly lesbian jokes. He looked around expectantly for someone to go next, and nobody was more surprised by Jasper stepping forward than Jasper.

“I, uh. I’m not all that great with speeches,” he said to the loose semicircle of his friends that surrounded him, and Konrad. Jasper nervously swirled the remaining champagne in his glass. “But I guess that kind of serves to make my point—I’m not great with communicating, or people in general, really. I’m not the easiest person to be close to. If you’ve ever taken in a stray cat, and fed it and cleaned it up, then been kind of offended when all it does is hide under the bed and hiss at you when you try to touch it… yeah. That’s about how it was when Hiyori decided she wanted to be my friend.”

Hiyori beamed at him, even as fresh tears welled in her eyes, her arm tightening around Amara and clutching the taller woman closer to her side.

Jasper stared at Lawrence’s shoes, knowing he wouldn’t be able to make eye contact with anyone as he continued. He rarely opened up one-on-one, he sure as hell didn’t do it with a group. “A couple of months ago, someone came into the shop who Hiyori was dead convinced had a thing for me. I told her she was wrong. Well, she wasn’t. But I shied away every chance I got, even though I started to really like him too. I haven’t had the best luck with relationships, and I was afraid to get hurt again. It was just hard to imagine what a man like him could see in me, so I sabotaged it as soon as I felt like I was letting myself get too close. Then Hiyori put him on a fucking plane with me.”