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It was both comforting and startling how easily they all slipped into familiar patterns and behaviors, right down to teasing each other about the same old things in the same old ways. But then the past was their common denominator. Maybe this meal had been more about reestablishing old alliances before they embarked on catching up with where they were in their lives now?

“It’s just…really hard to picture you here, Ell,” Chelsea said suddenly. “You loved New York so much.”

Ellery snapped out of his preoccupation. “I did. I do. But I felt like I was out of options in New York.”

“How can anyone be out of options in New York?”

Ellery shrugged.

“I can see Ellery here,” Tosh said. “Idosee Ellery here.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

It wasn’t necessarily meant as a compliment. He knew that. He knew his friends still thought he’d retreated from his old life—in their view,reality—after his career flatlined and he’d broken up with Todd. And in the beginning that had been at least partly true.

Not anymore. Not at all.

But he didn’t expect his old crew to see that. Not yet. Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, they’d understand.

Tom returned with the check, which Flip snatched from Ellery’s hand.

“We’ve got this.”

The inevitable wrangle ensued, which Ellery lost, then everyone gulped down the last of their drinks, shrugged into their coats and scarves, and headed for the door.

“See you Saturday!” Tom called.

For some reason it seemed a lot more difficult piling into the VW the third time than it had the first and second.

But at last, damp and breathless, Lenny, Tosh, and Chelsea were shoehorned into the backseat. Ellery handed Watson to Tosh for safekeeping. Flip buckled up in the passenger seat.

“What’s the world record for cramming people into a Volkswagen?” Chelsea gasped as Lenny tried to shift position. “Ooof!”

“Sorry,” Lenny muttered.

“It’s okay. They say you don’t really need your appendix.”

Watson began to whine.

Tosh said, “This reminds me of Freddie’s first car. Minus the puppy.”

“The Datsun 280ZX?” Flip turned in his seat to grin at Chelsea. “The one Chelsea almost wrecked.”

“I did not! At least I always returned it with a full tank. Unlike the rest of you freeloaders.”

“Ouch.”

“Don’t look at me. I don’t drive,” Lenny said.

“Right,” Tosh said. “And when we’d go anywhere together, Ellery had to curl up in the trunk.”

“It was a hatchback,” Ellery objected. “I didn’t travel in the trunk!”

Lenny said, “I’m still not sure why the tallest person was the one who had to fold up in the cargo area like a Gumby.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Nowshe mentions it,” Ellery said.