Epilogue #2
Tessa clicked a nail against the tabletop, her nail polish as chipped as the wood. “Would this have anything to do with that mysterious guy you’ve been seeing?”
Huh.
“How did you know?” I asked.
Khai snorted. “You’re really not as subtle as you think you are.”
“Grinning at your phone is kind of a giveaway,” Tessa said.
“And you’re tired, but weirdly happy about it,” Khai said.
“Also”—Tessa again—“there’s the way you talked about your hiking weekend upstate. You clearly weren’t alone, but you also wouldn’t tell us who you were with. Highly suspicious, dude. Although I have no idea how you even made time to meet someone.”
“It’s, um. Yeah.” I rubbed my thumb along the rim of my cup. “It’s a little delicate.”
“Delicate,” Tessa echoed, as if testing the word. “Why?”
“Because you know him,” I told her, then glanced at Khai. “You do as well, just… more from afar.”
Tessa was nearing the end of her pediatric surgery rotation.
They’d made Tay her mentor—Jesse suspected that Novak was setting Tay up for an attending position she’d open next winter, a year later than originally planned.
I’d caught no regret when Jesse had mentioned it; in fact, he’d sounded happy for someone he was coming to consider a close friend.
“Tay is gay.” Tessa sounded like she was working through a math problem. “But he’s with Dr. Hollis, and you’re no homewrecker.”
“Plus,” Khai said, “Dr. Hollis would totally kick your ass.”
“Hey,” I said even though Khai was probably right.
He’d already done his CT surgery rotation while mine was just coming up—but from what I’d heard, Dean Hollis wasn’t a guy you crossed lightly.
Tay wouldn’t date an asshole, though, so the rumors about Hollis’s icy disposition must be exaggerated. They usually were.
“His scalpel control is the stuff of legends,” Khai said, entirely unrepentant.
“Okay, fair. And no, it’s not Tay.” I took a sip of coffee to steady my nerves, peering at them over the rim. “It’s Jesse. Uh—Maddox.”
“Dr. Maddox?” Khai asked, frowning—surprise, not disapproval. At least I didn’t think so.
“You bagged one of the hot seniors?” Tessa sounded deeply impressed. “Good for you. But isn’t he leaving in the summer?”
Ah, yes. Devon didn’t need an intercom system—rumors bounced faster than radio waves. I nodded. “Ashwick Presbyterian, yeah.”
“That’s not too far,” Khai put in.
“No. And he’s looking at apartments that are sort of halfway between here and there, so—not too far, no.
Smaller places, you know? Trees, birds in the morning.
Air to breathe.” The knot between my shoulder blades tugged loose at Tessa’s beaming smile, at Khai’s quiet approval that sat mostly around the eyes.
I cleared my throat. “He sent me some listings. Asked if I wanted to come along, see them together.”
Khai’s eyebrows arched. “Sounds serious,” he said, and Tessa’s eyes narrowed, clearly more awake than she’d been just five minutes ago.
“Sounds like it’s not exactly new.”
I’d expected the question, and when Jesse and I had discussed how to answer it, he’d said he trusted my judgment. So far, only Neil, Shane, and Eli back home knew the full truth.
“It’s not,” I told Tessa, glancing from her to Khai. “I’ll tell you the whole story sometime, like when we’re all awake and there’s booze. But, yeah. We’ve been keeping it quiet. Not because it’s dirty, but… you know. For obvious reasons.”
“Because people don’t do nuance,” Khai said.
I folded my bottom lip between my teeth, realized I was doing it, and released it again. “Pretty much.”
Tessa leaned forward to grasp my hand. “They won’t hear it from us. You know that, right?”
The door opened on a gust that blew almond-sugar air at us. “I know,” I told her, squeezing back. “That’s why I told you. I really don’t need to shout it from the rooftops—honestly, it’s none of their business. But I didn’t like keeping it from you both.”
“We get it, though. Why you waited.” Tessa paused, then inhaled sharply as if just figuring something out. “Oh. Is that why Maddox—or, well, Jesse. Is that why he stepped back as your supervisor?”
“Yeah. We… We kind of ran into each other. After the blackout.” I turned the mug in my hands, its blue-striped ceramic warm against my fingers.
“Up until then, it felt like we had it under control—the attraction. I mean, we still tried, for a little while after. But I was pretty much in love with him already.” The milk-foam heart on my cappuccino had grown lopsided in a way that made me smile, then glance up. “It’s mutual.”
“It better be,” Tessa said, fierce.
“Especially if he’s organizing joint apartment viewings,” Khai tossed in.
My smile widened. God, it felt good to finally tell them.
These coffee crawls had become little islands after the storm, when nights were long and I wondered if the smell of antiseptics had become a permanent part of me—but somehow, I’d never quite worked up the courage to share this.
At least not until Jesse had sat me down yesterday and asked what I was waiting for.
“You trust them, right? Or is it me you still don’t?
Like, are you still waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Because newsflash, babe—it’s been nine months since we’ve met, and I’m only falling more in love with you. ”
And… Yeah. I did. I trusted them. Trusted him.
So here we were.
“He didn’t ask me to move in,” I said. “Just if I wanted to come along. Informational.”
“Oh, sure.” Tessa gave a very serious nod. “Informational like a question about ring sizes is informational.”
Khai’s lips quirked. “That a hint?”
She turned a full, beautiful smile on him. “Nah, I’m not subtle enough for hints. Also, when the time comes, who says you’ll be the one proposing?”
His eyebrows did a brief, elegant salute, pleased in an understated way. “Noted,” he said.
“Aww.” I made it sugary sweet, my grin dripping syrup. “And they say romance is dead.”
“You have exactly no leg to stand on, Mr. Dating-the-Hot-Boss,” Tessa informed me, mouth twitching.
“He’s not my boss,” I said.
“Anymore,” Khai said.
“Oh, hey.” Tessa grabbed for her phone and opened our shared note. “New category ‘coffee confessions’— done. Finn, what’s the verdict?”
I steepled my fingers together like a connoisseur. “Ten out of ten,” I said. “Would spill again.”
Tessa’s laugh bounced like pebbles against a window, mixing with Khai’s quieter, deeper chuckle. I tucked a smile into my coffee, my chest as wide as a country sky on a summer morning.
New York still didn’t feel like home, no. But these people did.
Shane
III. August
Hastings-on-Hudson felt like someone had taken a New England town, given it a train line, and said, boom, instant suburb chic. Pretty? Yes. Green? Yes. Expensive as hell? Absolutely. It was the kind of place where even the dogs went to “therapy.”
Weirdly, I could see Jesse here. Him and Finn both.
Jesse’s apartment came with its own ground-level entry, modest but tidy.
I’d already teased him about it when I’d helped with a few tasks shortly after he’d moved in—installing lamps, getting some pictures up on the walls.
“Your own hobbit door! What’s next—a golden retriever?
” This time, I came armed with a bottle of Riesling.
“I’m a man of taste!” I declared when he opened the door.
“Evidently.” He waved me in, feet bare and grin loose as he took the bottle from me. “Hi. Come on through.”
The place still smelled faintly of paint—sky blue in the bedroom, a sunny shade of peach in the kitchen.
Past the small entryway, glass doors opened to a patio with a patch of garden the listing had described as “promising.” Finn darted into our path with a refilled pitcher of water, curls humid, nose pink from the sun.
He spotted me and brightened, earnest and a little cheeky, the way I’d come to know him.
“You made it!” He sounded like I’d won a spelling bee. “Napkins are folded and everything. Please be impressed.”
“Swans?” I asked.
He flashed a smile at me. “More like capsized sailboats, honestly.”
Jesse and I followed him outside at a slightly slower pace, where I exchanged the wine for a bottle of beer.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon, the day’s heat trickling away like syrup as crickets warmed up for the night shift.
Tired concrete tiles made up the terrace, gaping wider in one corner where some ambitious weed had forced its way out.
Someone had planted a row of different shrubs along the back brick wall—Finn, clearly, because Jesse had only ever managed to keep one single plant alive in the time I’d known him.
A citronella candle tried to keep mosquitoes away.
“Everyone,” Jesse announced to the group already gathered near the grill.
“This is Shane. Former roommate, elementary school teacher, all-around great guy who saved my sanity more than once. Shane—that’s Tessa and Khai.
Same residency year as Finn.” He pointed at a woman with pink hair and a guy who looked like this was his first garden party in the suburbs and he’d decided to find it charming.
Khai shook my hand, Tessa pulled me into a hug like she’d known me for years. “Heard good things,” she told me. “And any friend of Finn’s is a friend of mine.”
“Hear, hear,” Finn commented around the neck of his beer bottle, smirk a mile wide.
“Tay and Dean you’ve already met,” Jesse continued, pointing at them, and yes, I had. It had been a relaxed pub night a few weeks ago, and I’d liked them—Tay was easy and charming, Dean a little more restrained in a way that I read as introverted rather than unfriendly.
“How’s it going?” I asked, and Tay grinned.
“Still processing that we’ve hit the age where people disperse to the suburbs, you know?”
“It’s a rite of passage,” I agreed.
Dean smiled, both hands in his pockets. He had a nice smile when he chose to activate it. “Great choice if you want to befriend your neighbors and UPS driver. Not sure I’m cut out for it.”