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“Aye, but I’d take it any day over bloody terranium.” He saluted me with his pint. “To your dad,” he said, and took a swill.

I kept my features measured and brought my own drink to my lips, taking the barest of sips.

Otto and Polly joined the table then, falling into chairs with flushed faces and wide smiles. The shadows darkening Polly’s eyes had disappeared. Otto spoke to her conspiratorially, and she laughed.

“What’re you laughin’ about?” Donny said. “I heard you say my name, Otto.”

“I was tellin’ Polly about the time we stole horses from Old Parker’s barn, and you accidentally saddled a donkey.” Otto chuckled. “This was back when we were kids and Donny could still see a lick. Not enough to tell the difference between a horse and an arse, obviously.” The table fell into a fit of laughter.

“But you’re forgettin’ the rest of the story, Otto,” Donny grumbled. “The part where you fell clear of your horse with your trousers caught in the stirrups. He had to walk back into town in his underwear.”

Otto sobered, and the rest roared harder, even Patrick, who mussed Otto’s hair.

“How you two weren’t thrown into the fuckin’ clink astounds me,” Gunner guffawed.

“Ah, Patty took two bottles of whiskey from the bar and walked it over to Old Parker. Made me take the donkey back, too,” Donny said. “He promised not to go to the coppers.”

My lips felt as though they might crack from overuse. I realized I hadn’t smiled often over the past seven years. And something else was thawing away, releasing me. I watched them all taunt and pick at one another, listened to the stories of their younger selves. Every so often, Polly and I locked eyes, and I remembered what she’d said about trying not to see it—this patchwork affection among them all. I found I was jealous.

During an interval of conversation, Patrick reached over and took thebottom of my chair. In one smooth movement he scooted it closer to his own, so that parts of our arms glanced each other’s, though to look at it would be to see nothing of consequence—the pub was brimming and there was hardly much room for anyone to stand without touching another—but a current flared to life beneath my skin.

I couldn’t help but steal glances up at him, and each time I was struck with how engrossingly handsome he was. Had I ever suffered an attraction so devastating?

I hadn’t.

And the realization hit me like a freight train. I knew then that I couldn’t do it.

I looked at the longstanding friendships before me, in this pub alone. In the market and hills beyond, there were whole families, neighbors greeting neighbors. Freedom and dancing. All this good among the bad. And then there was Patrick.

I couldn’t do it.

I wouldn’t.

But then what?

Two guns, Polly had said.

Amid the chorus to “Sleep, Whistle, Sleep,” Theo arrived.

The pub was a din of off-key singing. Patrons had their eyes closed and their arms over one another’s shoulders, swaying back and forth in time with the piano. Polly was sitting on Otto’s lap, and I with my arm pressed tightly to Patrick’s.

Theo was covered head to toe in mud.

It caked on his face and cracked where he frowned. His eyes were rimmed red and he looked bone tired; he measured Polly and me and the drinks in our hands in a deadened way.

Warily, I put an inch between Patrick’s arm and mine.

And Patrick noticed. I felt his eyes land heavily on me, then bounce to Theo.

The din receded.

“Theodore,” Patrick said casually, though surely, he’d noticed the fissure down Theo’s face. “Get a drink. Join us.”

But Theo’s eyes only skittered as far as Patrick’s hand, which had reached around the back of my chair and rested just short of my shoulder, not touching, but sending a message as clear as if it were.

Theo reserved his response for me. “Enjoying your evening?” he asked, voice empty of emotion. Next, he addressed Polly. “And you?”

Polly swallowed. She stood from Otto’s lap and smoothed out her dress. “I should be off to bed.”