Dominic:
You don’t have to be anything. Just you.
I stared at that for a long moment.
Then put my phone away and went back inside.
I’d skipped the last two soup nights. Tomorrow was definitely not looking good either. The fact they seemed to be hosting an impromptu version when I got home startled me—and I also couldn’t bring myself to muster the energy to join them.
Not because I didn’t want to—because I did, desperately—but because I knew if I sat on those stairs with wine and laughter and music drifting through the walls, I’d probably fall asleep in the middle of it.
Already trying to compose a half-dozen valid excuses, I hesitated on the first floor just as Alix stepped out of her door and locked it behind her.
She was wearing one of Jules’ sweaters again—too big, sleeves pushed up, collar slipping off one shoulder. Her hair was half pulled back like she’d started and then lost interest midway through. She had her keys in one hand and a tote bag in the other.
After sweeping a look over me, she said, “You look like a ghost.”
“Wow. Thank you.”
She tilted her head, eyes scanning me in a way that felt uncomfortably accurate. “Drink with me.”
“I would love to but I have—” I patted my camera bag.
She blinked once. “You always have work. Drink with me anyway.” When I motioned weakly toward the stairs, she snorted. “They’re having boys’ night. They got some new videogame and I was not having them mess up the apartment for a twenty-four-hour marathon.”
That actually made me laugh, a short, surprised sound I hadn’t realized I still had in me.
“So,” she said again, already turning toward the door. “Drink with me.”
I looked down at my camera bag. At my phone lighting up with something I didn’t have the energy to check. At my reflection in the dark glass of the stairwell window — pale, eyes ringed, posture slumped like I was apologizing to gravity.
“Okay,” I said finally.
Her mouth curved into a small, victorious smile.
We ended up at a small bar two streets over, the kind that smelled like citrus and old wood and didn’t care what time it was. The lights were low, the music unobtrusive, the kind of place people went when they didn’t want to perform being out.
Alix ordered for both of us without asking.
“White,” she told the bartender. “Something not aggressive.”
I didn’t argue.
When she slid my glass across the table, she leaned back in her chair and studied me like she’d been waiting for this angle all evening.
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Are you thriving, or are you about to collapse artistically in a very French way?”
I laughed — and then felt my throat tighten unexpectedly, like my body had mistaken the question for permission.
“That’s not fair,” I said. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”
She smiled, softer. “Perhaps. Then tell me this: when was the last time you did something just because you wanted to?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again.
