Not just the gratitude for the gesture, though that's there too.
But the possibility.
That home might be more than just a place I left behind. It might be the place I've been trying to find my way back to all along.
CHAPTER 27
PURPLE RAIN
NATE
Sonder is packedlike it is most Saturday nights—locals mixing with the summer crowd, music pulsing from speakers mounted in corners, conversations bleeding into each other until it's just a wall of sound.
Tonight, though, there's a specific energy. A celebratory chaos.
Because today was Mia's baby shower.
Which means while the women spent the afternoon playing ridiculous games involving measuring Mia's belly with toilet paper and guessing baby food flavors, the men did what men do: retreated to the bar to drink beer and pretend we're not terrified about the fact that Ollie's about to be responsible for a tiny human.
Levi and Sonny are already halfway drunk when I arrive, laughing about something one of the girls seated with them said, the tension from rehearsal apparently dissolved thanks to alcohol.
Ollie's at our usual table in the back, laughing too loud, clapping me on the shoulder the moment I sit down like we're still nineteen and nothing hurts yet.
"Nate! Finally! We've been here for two hours. Where the hell were you?"
"Working," I say, sliding into the booth. "Some of us have jobs."
"Some of us," Ollie counters, "are about to be fathers and deserve a pass on productivity."
Jay's beside him, grinning, already ordering another round before I've finished my first drink.
"To Ollie!" Jay shouts, holding up a shot of Jager that materialized from somewhere.
"And to Mia!" Julian adds, raising his own glass. "For carrying his child and somehow still tolerating him."
"To surviving adulthood," Ollie laughs, raising his beer. "Barely."
We clink glasses, the boys knock back shots, while I sip my Coke.
The familiar pang hits—not craving, exactly, but the ghost of what it used to feel like to be part of this particular ritual. The burn, the looseness, the way alcohol made everything easier. But then I remember what it also made easier: lying, hiding, destroying everything I cared about.
So I sip my Coke and let them get drunk around me.
It's enough.
We fall into the easy rhythm of banter and conversations that don't require explanations or performance. Ollie leans closer after a few minutes, his voice dropping below the noise.
"You're gonna be the coolest uncle in Eden. You know that, right?"
"Adopted uncle," I say.
He studies me with eyes that are sharp despite the alcohol. "That could change, you know?"
"Ollie." I warn.
"Have you talked to her?"
I don't need to ask who he means.
