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The car pulled up to my house. I tipped the driver in cash, walked inside, stood in my dark kitchen trying to figure out how I'd become this person.

Someone who'd just agreed to be friends with a woman she wanted to undress.

Someone who respected boundaries even when they hurt.

Someone who'd found something worth being brave for, but wasn't being asked to be brave.

And somehow that made it both easier and infinitely worse.

I poured a glass of water, drank it standing at the sink, and tried not to think about Harper's admission. About her hands in my hair, her body beneath mine, the sounds she thought about me making.

Tried and failed spectacularly.

This was going to be the longest friendship of my life.

But at least I'd have her. In whatever form I could.

And that had to be enough.

Even if it felt like torture.

11

This Is Sustainable

Harper

Isla's birthday dinner was supposed to be a small, intimate gathering of close friends.

Which, in Isla's world, apparently meant: Trish (her wife, obviously), Mia and Laine (the couple who were so in love it made my teeth hurt), Cam (the human embodiment of sexual frustration and emotional constipation), coworkers Blair and Danica from Laine's matchmaking business (friends), the entire Fangs team (other friends), Rekha and Janie and Kindra (friends Mia and I had known since high school), and me (disaster bisexual with a crush I was still getting used to).

So yeah. Intimate, I guess? Like a sold-out Fangs game is intimate, maybe.

We gathered around Isla and Trish's dining table, and ate a meal that Trish had prepared while also still managing to succeed at being a professional athlete. Herb-crusted salmon that melted on the tongue. Roasted vegetables that made me reconsider my relationship with asparagus—like, seriously reconsider because I thought green beans and I were straight up homies, but maybe asparagus was the true winner. Ah, and some kind of potato situation that was probably a first-degree crime to prepare in several states due to the sheer amount of butter and heavy cream involved.

"This is obscene," I announced, taking another bite and making what were probably inappropriate sounds. "Trish, you're making the rest of us look bad. Some of us can barely operate a microwave without triggering the smoke alarm."

"You can operate a microwave," Mia said. "You just choose not to."

"I choose to support local restaurants and the gig economy. It's called being civically minded. I'm basically a philanthropist. Where's my award?"

"Your award is not burning down your apartment building."

"See? I'm already winning at life. Someone alert the Nobel committee."

"Some things really haven't changed since high school," Janie muttered, her blue eyes sparkling in the light.

"Excuse me, I've grown tremendously as a person."

Kindra tucked a piece of her green bob behind one ear. "You set off my parents' smoke alarm making frozen pizza."

"Allegedly."

"I was there."

"Your testimony is biased."

Rekha laughed tiredly from beside her, and I pointed across the table. "See? Dr. Rekha Jain, pediatric surgeon extraordinaire, believes me."