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He kissed me.

It wasn’t like the first. It wasn’t a test. It was a promise, warm and slow and sure, and I heard, distantly, through a roaring in my ears, the sound of a hundred and forty people rising to their feet.

And a boom from the front row, deep, wild, and delighted, that could only have been Jason Reyes shouting “THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND!”

The reception was a blur.

There was dancing. There was a cake shaped like a hockey stick. There was a first dance, to a song Maksim had chosen and refused to name, a slow old Russian waltz that made the whole barn go quiet. I stood in his arms, in the firelight, with my head on his shoulder, and felt him hum under his breath.

“What is this?” I whispered.

“A lullaby,” said Maksim. “Do you remember?”

I did. I remembered a small white room, and a candle burned to the socket, and a bird who was afraid of the dark.

“You said you’d never sing it again.”

“I said I do not sing.” His arms tightened. “I did not say I do not hum.”

I laughed into his collar.

There was a toast. There were several. My mother’s was tearful and long. Sabine’s was in three languages and ended with a fierce raised fist. Tamsin’s was five words: “Don’t screw it up, boys.” Ozzy’s was a bellowed “TO THE KID!”

And then there was Jason’s.

He stood up at the head table, in his rumpled tux, with a glass of champagne in one hand and a stack of index cards in the other. He looked at us for a while. He’d stopped crying, mostly. His eyes were red, but his face was serious, and he looked, for the first time in his life, like a man who’d thought about what he wanted to say.

“Okay,” said Jason. “So. I’ve got a speech.”

“Ten minutes!” I called.

“I know. I’m gonna cut it.” He riffled the cards. “I had a goose story. It’s a good one. But I don’t think it fits.”

“Boo!” shouted someone.

“It’s about a goose.”

“Boo!”

“It’s got a moral! “ He sighed. “Fine. Okay. Screw it.” He put the cards down, and lifted his glass, and looked at me.

“I’ve known Lex Pendleton for nine years,” said Jason. “He’s a nightmare. He bites. He cusses. He once got kicked out of a Denny’s for arguing with the manager about hash browns. He’s the worst roommate I’ve ever had, and he owes me forty dollars, and I would take a bullet for him.”

The room laughed.

“But here’s what I want to tell you,” said Jason. His voice cracked. “About nine years ago, I was a scared kid from Tucson who’d just been traded to a team where I didn’t know anyone. And there was this angry guy in the locker room who wouldn’t look at me. And one night I was sitting alone on a bench, and he came over and sat down without saying a word. And after a while he pushed a granola bar across the bench and said, You look hungry. “

I stared at him.

“That’s it,” said Jason. “That’s the whole story. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. But I’ve known ever since that if Lex Pendleton gives you his food, you’re family.” He turned. “And Maksim. Man. I don’t know what you are. I’ve got a theory. I’m not going to say it. But I saw you on that roof, and I’ve watched you these last few months, and I want you to know something.”

Maksim inclined his head.

“You gave him his food back,” said Jason. “You made him a person who could share it. That’s the best thing anyone’s ever done for my friend, and I’ll never be able to thank you.” He raised his glass. His hand was shaking. “To Lex and Maksim. The loudest, dumbest, luckiest bastards in the world. May you always have enough to eat.”

He drained the glass.

The barn was silent. Then, all at once, it erupted. Cheers, whistles, glasses clinking, a chair scraping back as my mother flung herself across the room to hug him. I sat there with my hand over my mouth, shaking, and felt Maksim’s arm go round my shoulders.