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“You weren’t even there,” I say, already reaching for a spring roll to throw at him. “I just told her the truth.”

“Which,” Liv says from her position near the biography section, “is why it was so devastating. You didn’t yell. You didn’t cry. You just said what happened, as it happened, and let them sit with it.” She raises her glass with careful attention. “It was beautiful. In a completely horrifying way.”

I hang my head. “You all embellish too much, did one of you sneak in a camera that I wasn’t aware of?”

The three of them seem to communicate in facial expressions for a moment before Harper turns to me. “Well, no, but we like to pretend we were there to have you back and drop kick Daniel.”

I guess I can’t argue with that. I smile at their insanity, thankful I have them.

Liv is wearing black, as always, with the arrangement that makes her look like she’s attending a very fashionable funeral. She’s redesigned the café’s Instagram grid on her laptop while simultaneously holding a spring roll, her attention split between three separate screens with an ease that borders on creepy.

“To Elsie,” she continues, her voice carrying the warmth that appears when she means it completely. “Who took the worst year of her life and turned it into a master class on how to leave with dignity.”

We drink again, Luca already reaching for the bottle to refill glasses that are still half-full. Harper is already slightly flushed, one hand pressed to her cheek showing how much alcohol she has consumed.

“The champagne,” she announces to no one in particular, “is definitely French. In the best way. Like a very small, very angry man in a beret yelling about the proper way to fold a crepe.”

“That’s not a thing,” Luca tells her, already reaching for another spring roll. “French people don’t yell about crepes. They yell about wine. And cheese. And occasionally the correct way to pronounce ‘croissant,’ which, for the record, is not how any of you have been saying it.”

The evening continues like this, overlapping conversations, inside jokes, the type of comfort that comes from people who have seen you at your absolute worst and decided to stay anyway. I sit at the table with a plate of food I didn’t have to prepare and a drink I didn’t have to share and the complete, luxurious awareness that for the next twelve hours, no one needs anything from me. No bottles to warm. No diapers to change. No tiny humans to negotiate with about the appropriate number of crackers before dinner. Just me, in a clean top I didn’t have to change twice, surrounded by the people who carried me through the worst year of my life.

It’s only when the door opens that I realize I’ve been waiting for something else. Noah stands in the doorway with a bottle of wine in one hand and the expression of someone who isn’t entirely sure they’ve been invited to the right party.

“Hey,” he says, already turning slightly toward the door. “Luca mentioned there was something happening tonight. I can absolutely pretend I remembered another commitment if this is a friends-only situation.”

He’s wearing a blue shirt I’ve never seen before, slightly rumpled at the cuffs, and his hair is standing slightly on end as if he’s been running his hands through it. He looks nothing like the carefully put-together man who sits at the window seat every morning with his manuscript and his quiet focus. He looks... nervous. Which is so unexpected that for a moment, I can’t quite process it.

“You should stay,” I tell him, already gesturing toward the empty chair beside me. “There’s plenty of food. And Luca bought enough champagne to drown a moderately sized pony.”

Noah smiles, the expression warming his entire face, and crosses to the table. “Thanks,” he says, already setting the wine beside the takeaway containers. “I wasn’t sure if I should come. Luca’s invitation was... enthusiastic, but not entirely clear on the details.”

“Enthusiastic but unclear is basically his entire communication strategy,” Harper says, already reaching for the wine. “Last month he texted me ‘EMERGENCY PHOTO SHOOT TOMORROW BRING BLACK’ with no further context. I showed up ready for either a funeral or a very specific kind of boudoir shoot. It was for author headshots.”

“The black was for dramatic contrast,” Luca explains, already reaching for the wine opener. “Artistic vision requires sacrifice.”

“The sacrifice,” Harper counters, “was my entire morning and the dignity I’ll never get back after making that many ‘mysterious author’ faces in public.”

Throughout it all, Noah slots into the group with the same quiet ease he always has, he listens more than he speaks, laughs at Luca’s increasingly unhinged toasts, helps Harper open a second bottle when she can’t find the opener, and at one point has a completely serious conversation with Liv about serif fonts that I watch from across the table with something I can’t quite categorize. Not quite attraction, though there’s definitely that. Not quite comfort, though God knows that’s part of it. More like... an unsettling awareness. An understanding when you realize someone has been quietly, consistently fitting into your life.

The café feels alive around us, warm light spilling across the mismatched furniture, overlapping conversations rising and falling like waves. Harper tells a story about Leo’s latest existential crisis, “He asked if trees get lonely when they’re the only one of their kind in a forest, then cried for seventeen minutes when I couldn’t give him a definite answer”. Liv explains her latest project with a focus that appears when she’s genuinely excited, “The client wants the cover to ‘evoke melancholy without being depressing,’ which is like asking for a swimming pool that’s both wet and dry”. Luca toasts at least seven different things with increasing dramatic flair, each speech longer and less coherent than the last.

And through it all, Noah sits beside me, not too close, not demanding space, just present in a way that makes my chest ache slightly. At one point, his hand brushes mine while reaching for the wine, and neither of us moves away immediately. Just a moment, a brief, almost accidental touch. But enough to make me wonder, not for the first time, what happens next.

Eventually, Harper leaves first with a long hug and a quiet “I’m proud of you” that I have to blink through. “I mean it,” she says, her voice low enough that only I can hear it. “What you did took courage. A courage that actually matters.”

I squeeze her hand once, hard enough to ground us both, and watch as she gathers her things with the efficiency of someone who’s been a mother long enough to make exits an art form. Liv leaves next, pausing to squeeze my hand once without saying anything, which from Liv is practically a declaration of love.

“Text me tomorrow,” she says, already moving toward the door. “I have a new mock-up for the children’s section that will either revolutionize early literacy or get us both sued. Possibly both.”

Luca is last, pulling on his coat and kissing the top of my head with careful attention. “Lock up properly,” he tells me, already moving toward the door. “And for God’s sake, try to have one normal human interaction that doesn’t involve discussing baby bowel movements.”

I roll my eyes, already reaching for my keys. “I make no promises.”

He grins, already backing toward the door. “That’s my girl,” he says, and then he’s gone, the bell above the door chiming softly as it closes behind him.

And then it’s just Noah and me, stacking chairs in the quiet café, the fairy lights still on, the champagne glasses rinsed and draining beside the sink. The atmosphere changes slightly. Noah sets a chair down and turns toward me with careful attention.

“I know your life has been... a lot,” he says, his voice carrying the warmth that appears when he’s being completely honest. “And I’m not trying to make things harder. But I think you should know I like you.”