The room goes completely silent for approximately one second.
Then Poppy screams a loud, high-pitched sound that she immediately smothers with a throw pillow, but her whole body is shaking with it.
Erin has her arm over her eyes and won't look at me, and I can feel her shaking under my feet. Poppy surfaces from the pillow, points at me, and makes a sound that isn't a word.
I sit there perfectly composed, because I have said a factual thing about a factual man and I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised.
"Lily," Erin manages between fits of laughter, barely getting my name out.
"Not that I have seen anything. I'm just saying I have eyes. And I've done the math. And the math is..."
"Painful," Erin finishes for me, and then loses it again.
I allow myself a small smile, because fine, that is a littlefunny. I throw a cushion at Erin and she catches it. Poppy has finally resurfaced from the pillow, still chuckling to herself.
"Both of you are children."
"You're the one who..." Poppy starts, but I cut her off.
"If either of you tells anyone I said that, I'm moving back to Chicago."
I try for threatening, but I can't stop smiling and it undercuts the whole effect.
That settles them, mostly. They're still grinning when I leave an hour later, when the night has gotten properly dark and the wine has mellowed into that pleasant end-of-evening heaviness and the walk home seems like exactly what I need.
Harbor Hill in June at half past ten is one of the better things I've discovered about this town. The streets are quiet but not empty, safe-quiet instead of lonely-quiet, warm and salt-aired with everything lit amber against the dark. I've been walking everywhere since February out of habit now, and at night especially, there's something about this town that feels like it's just for me. Like I could belong here, if I let myself.
I'm somewhere between Erin's street and my own, thinking about nothing in particular, when headlights sweep up behind me and slow.
The Escalade rolls to a stop at the curb beside me, window already down. Callahan leans across the center console, and tonight he looks annoyed. At me, apparently.
"It's ten thirty." His voice comes out gruff, like that's supposed to mean something.
I give him an eye roll, because what else am I supposed to do with that. "I know. I was there for the whole day."
"Get in."
I ignore him and keep walking, slow enough that he can hear me. "I'm a few minutes from home."
"Can you please stop being stubborn for once in your life?" He exhales through his nose like I'm testing the outer limits of his patience, which I might be. The look he gives me is the one I imagine he uses on people who won't evacuate during a fire warning.
The engine idles as we stare at each other. The Escalade's interior light is doing wonders to the angles of his face.
"It's Harbor Hill," I tell him, crossing my arms. "The most dangerous thing out here is Ruth's opinion of my food choices."
"Every town is dangerous after dark. Get in."
"That is the most..."
"I'm not driving away and leaving you on a footpath at ten thirty at night," he interrupts.
"So you can either get in, or we can have this conversation with you standing on the curb. I'll move at your pace the whole way home, and it's going to look very fucking strange."
He shifts the car into park like he's settling in for a siege as I pop my hip, ready to outwait him, but he just looks at me like he's got all night and nowhere else to be.
I hate that the stubbornness also looks good on him. I hate that he makes it impossible to keep this stupid crush at bay.
I eye the Escalade, considering. "You know, if I tied myscarf to your mirror while you did that, it would look like I was walking this beast like a dog."
