Zoë's fingers tighten on his arm, and Gio's jaw works.
"The posts are getting worse," he says low enough that Zoë has to lean in.
"I know." I angle myself to block the kitchen traffic from bumping into them. "You need anything?"
"A time machine. A different last name."
"I've got beer and a sandwich story. Take it or leave it."
His mouth curves barely. "Tell me the sandwich story again."
"You've heard it six times."
"Seven. The versions keep changing. I'm tracking continuity."
Zoë looks at me. "Is this the gas station one?"
"It's always the gas station one."
"The expiration date changes every time."
"That's the art, Zoë. That's the craft."
She almost smiles, her hand staying on Gio's arm and his staying on her hip, and for a second the tension in him eases.
Adrian sits on the couch with Clara tucked against his side, his hand resting on her ankle, which is the closest Adrian gets to celebration, and the sight of it makes something in my chest ache.
The door opens, and Maya steps inside at eleven-thirty with snow caught in her hair and her cheeks bright from the cold. She must've gone back to the office after the game, the storyprobably filed before the locker room finished celebrating, because she's always one step ahead.
She pauses just inside the doorway, eyes sweeping the party. Then she steps in. Past the kitchen archway where Dante has drifted from the counter to the frame, into the part of the house where he told her she doesn't belong.
She spots Clara on the couch and slides into the open space beside her. "Maya!" Clara shifts over. "Did you file already?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
"You're insane."
"I'm efficient. There's a difference."
Talia crosses from the armchair with a drink and presses it into Maya's hand. Maya takes it, says something low that makes Talia laugh, a real one. Then Maya's laughing too, head tipping back against the couch cushion, her whole face opening in a way I haven't seen aimed at me in months. It cuts across my chest, sharp and sudden. Clara says something I can't hear, and Maya covers her mouth with her sleeve, still laughing. The three of them fold into each other on the couch in a shorthand I can't read, and the distance between us stretches wider than the room.
From across the room, Maya's shoulders have eased down, her jaw loose. She doesn't laugh like that next to me, not anymore.
She tucks her legs up under herself, my sweatshirt swallowing her hands as she pulls the sleeves down. Then she lifts her arms to gather her hair, and the sweatshirt rides up—a strip of skin appears above her jeans, pale and smooth, and my breath stops in my throat.
The memory hits.
A bedroom at home when we were seventeen. My knees grinding into the carpet at the foot of her bed, my mouth on that same strip of skin and moving lower while her hips pressed against the edge of the mattress like she was trying to get closer.Her back arching, her fingers tangled in my hair and pulling hard enough to sting.
I look up at the ceiling and count the fucking beams. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Someone presses a drink into my hand and I take it, my grip closing too hard around the cup until the plastic creaks in protest. That day is still caught behind my eyes—her back arching, my name tearing from her mouth—and my hands are shaking so I brace the cup against my thigh until the tremors stop, my knuckles white.
I cross the room with the cup still in my hand, set it down on the side table beside the couch, and take the cushion on Maya's open side. There's about a foot of space between us when I sit. The cushion sinks under my weight, and she lets the shift bring her closer until her thigh rests against mine, a line of heat that goes straight through my jeans. She's close enough now that the honeysuckle of her shampoo cuts through the beer and sweat. My pulse is still going from the flashback, a frantic beat in my ears. Underneath that, the older memory keeps surfacing: the carpet under my knees, the curve of her hip. Nine years of sitting this close to her, and a different version of her comes up every time.
"You're quiet," she says, her voice low.
"I'm never quiet."
