Chapter 18 #2
I raise my glass. “The problem with optimization is the endpoint keeps moving. You can’t help but iterate.”
“Exactly.”
Caleb grins. “But even Whitman knows when to stop iterating and enjoy the results.”
“That, I do,” I say, looking at Audrey, who’s sipping her wine with undisguised pleasure.
My chest feels light. I don’t have to over analyze it, or her, or the fact that everyone is watching us now—not with envy or judgment, but with a smug, familial satisfaction.
I never realized how much I wanted that.
Dominic, of course, sees the opening and lunges for it. “Speaking of enjoying results, can I just say—this?” He gestures between Audrey and me, waving his hand in little circles. “This here is the feel-good story of the quarter. I’m so happy I could cry. I won’t, but I could.”
Serena laughs. “You’re allowed feelings, you know.”
“Only the pre-approved ones,” Dominic counters, but he’s grinning at me, his face all genuine warmth for once. “Seriously, it’s been a long time since you let yourself relax like this. I like seeing it.”
“Me too,” Caleb adds, pressing a kiss to Serena’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you both. And I’ve missed this. We haven’t all been together outside the office in weeks.”
Jenna makes a sound that’s almost a laugh and raises her glass to the middle of the table. “To the prototype. May all your clinical trials go as planned.”
There’s a chorus of ‘Cheers’ and we all clink, minor chaos as glasses and arms tangle across the narrow table.
Audrey hooks her ankle over mine under the table, a tiny secret in the middle of so much noise, and I grip her hand on top of the bench, my thumb tracing the bones and veins beneath her skin.
Grounding, maybe. Or showing off. Or both.
The DJ is playing something slow now, a low thump and haze, which means half of them will rotate back to the dance floor in a minute. Or, more likely, Caleb will drag Serena back out there before anyone else can finish a sentence.
I lean into the corner of the booth and let myself watch them.
My friends. My whole chaotic little orbit, stitched together from people who used to feel like satellites to me, now—somehow—a proper constellation.
At some point, we became a family. Not the blood kind—the chosen kind.
The kind that takes your broken parts and insists they’re beautiful.
I wonder when that happened. And if I deserve it.
The old voice whispers that I don’t. That this is borrowed time. That eventually they’ll grow tired of dealing with me and the constellation will scatter.
I tell that voice to shut up. I’m trying to enjoy a night out with my people.
Audrey nudges my knee under the table. “You look like you’re thinking yourself into a spiral.”
“Not a spiral,” I tell her, but my tone says otherwise. “Just recalculating the odds.”
She gives me a long, steady look, then turns my hand over in hers and draws a slow circle on my palm with her fingertip. “Try not to go supernova. Some of us like you exactly as you are.”
I can’t answer that, not without my throat locking up, so I just bring her hand up and kiss the back of it, and she laughs, tucking herself against my side, her curls fanning out over my shoulder.
We hover there for a while, auditory chaos flattening into white noise around the booth, bodies in motion all across the floor, glasses sweating onto lacquered wood.
Dominic is regaling the table with a story about a karaoke night gone wrong in Hong Kong.
Layla keeps making little faces at Bennett, who seems happy to just watch her in love-drunk silence.
For once, everyone’s content, and so am I.
I didn’t think I’d ever get used to nights like this—the ones where it’s enough just to show up and belong.
Time gets slippery in the low light, and I lose track of it for a while.
Audrey and Serena vanish for a bathroom summit, Layla and Bennett drift off to the quieter mezzanine, Jenna ghosts to the bar for a refill, and Dominic follows, likely to talk her into a tequila shot or a close-quarters dance.
Caleb trails after Serena, probably to stand guard outside the bathroom, and for a minute, the booth is just me and David.
He sips his whiskey, then sets it down and turns to face me. “You’re happy,” he says quietly. Not a question, more like an empirical observation.
The word feels strange applied to me. Like a shirt I’m still not sure fits.
I nod. “Yeah. I think I am.”
He looks down into his glass, rolling it between his palms. “It’s good to see. You know, there was a while there when I didn’t think you’d ever get out of your own head long enough to let someone in.”
I almost laugh, but the weight in his words catches me off guard. “Me neither.”
“Audrey’s good for you. You’re good for her, too.” He looks up, meets my gaze. “Don’t second-guess it. Just let yourself have it.”
It doesn’t sound like a toast or a benediction, more an order from someone who’s lived through the aftermath of not allowing himself to want what he wanted.
“I wanted to thank you,” I say finally. “For the advice. That day in your office.”
David raises an eyebrow. “Which part? The part where I told you to stop being a coward, or the part where my ex-wife showed up and nearly kidnapped my daughter?”
“Both, I guess.” I fiddle with my glass, not quite meeting his eyes. “You were right. About telling her the truth. About fear being universal. All of it.”
“I’m glad it worked out.” He takes a sip of whiskey. “You seem different. Lighter.”
“I feel different.” I pause. “Audrey’s good for me. I didn’t realize how much I was just... going through the motions until she made me stop.”
David nods slowly. “That’s what the right person does—or so I hear. I’m yet to find my person. But maybe it’s just something that isn’t in the cards for me. I made peace with that when I decided to just focus on being a good dad.”
He’s quiet after that, and I get the sense there’s more he’s not saying. About the woman who left him, about the daughter he’d die for, about whether it gets easier to settle for less than everything. I want to reassure him, but I don’t know how. It isn’t exactly my area of expertise.
Instead, I say, “You know, Michaela mentioned something interesting. When we were at the school that day.”
“Michaela mentions a lot of things. Most of them are unsolicited opinions about my life choices.”
“She said Principal Harrison—Nora—has ‘stars in her eyes’ for you.”
David goes very still. His glass pauses halfway to his mouth.
“She said what?”
“Stars in her eyes. For you.” I keep my voice neutral. “Also mentioned that the principal is single and ‘pretty and smart too.’ Direct quote.”
David coughs, nearly choking on his whiskey. For a guy who usually has the pulse of every interaction down to the microsecond, he’s completely caught out—blinking at me like an error message flashed behind his eyes.
“Michaela’s matchmaking logic comes from Disney Channel reruns and eavesdropping on adult conversations,” he finally manages. “I’m not... I’m not that guy anymore, Whitman.”
“What guy?”
He shrugs. “The guy who knows what he’s doing. The guy people give starry-eyed reports about.” He takes a slow drink. “Feels like a different life. But it’s nice, I guess. Knowing someone might still think I’m worth the trouble.”
I don’t push. David is like that—private geode, all spiked shell and hidden crystals. If Principal Harrison is going to get anywhere with him, it won’t be from someone else dragging him toward it.
“So, do you like her?” I ask, but even I can tell the question is too direct.
He side-eyes me, then looks away. “She’s interesting.
Brilliant, in that fix-the-bureaucracy-with-a-smile kind of way.
Fierce, especially when she’s fighting for her students.
” He smiles. “But even if there was something, it’s complicated.
She’s Michaela’s principal. There are professional boundaries.
And after Kelsie...” He shakes his head.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to put Michaela through another situation where someone might leave. ”
“That’s fair.” I hesitate for a moment. “But for what it’s worth, you gave me advice about taking risks. About not letting fear keep me from something good. Maybe the same applies to you.”
David snorts. “Using my own words against me. Nicely done.”
“I learned from the best.”
Before he can respond, everyone returns from the bathroom. Caleb pulls a very willing Serena back toward the dance floor, and Audrey slides back in next to me, her cheeks flushed from whatever conversation she’s just had. She immediately tucks herself under my arm.
“What’d I miss?” she asks.
“Nothing,” David says smoothly. “Just discussing project timelines.”
“On a Saturday night? At a club?” She raises an eyebrow. “You two really need to learn how to relax.”
“I’m relaxed,” I argue, downing the last of my drink. Audrey tilts her face up so I have to look directly at her. There’s a flush in her cheeks—maybe the wine, maybe just the night. I pull her closer, wanting to keep her exactly like this.
“Wanna get out of here and do something less loud? My place, maybe. Or yours…” The suggestion is weightless, almost invisible in the noise, but it lands with the force of a small planet colliding with my orbit.
I nod, a little too eagerly. “Yours. Definitely yours.”