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“Hi, I’m Uther, Esther’s best friend in the entire world.” He offered his hand, and Ashley took it.

A vision flashed before Esther’s eyes. The two of them, Ashley and Uther, going to brunch and laughing together, sitting on the little stools at the window table of that café downtown because the hostess knew to put the happiest-looking people on display. They were free marketing.Come eat brunch here and you can be as happy as these two. Ashley would claim him as her friend to whoever asked with no restraint, and Uther would return every text she sent him with the utmost punctuality.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ashley.” Ashley shifted a lock of hair behind her ear, nails the soft pink of clouds passing in and out of sight. “I’m in Esther’s Anthro 101 class.”

“Oh, the one where she’s GA?” Uther tucked a fist under his chin as though this was the most fascinating conversation.

Esther could let this happen. They would make the perfect best friend pair. Ashley was fun and outgoing, and Uther, while shy in a crowd, made an excellent confidant. She could fade into the background and let nature take its course. He was supposed to be temporary, a phase to get her through school. Maybe it was for the best to let him go now. But picturing that future carved a hollow tunnel in her chest and a feral part of her extended its claws.

“Yes,” Esther said. “They’re partnering up to do an ethnography in her class, and I agreed to pair up with Ashley.”

“You did, did you?” Uther said the words slowly and with a meaning Esther couldn’t quite follow. She was still reeling from the unmoored feeling of losing Uther.

Ashley jumped in. “And it was so nice of you to offer to help like that. I had a family emergency when everyone was pairing up. Anyway, we still need to set up a date, or umm, a time to meet up and, you know, study each other?”

“Oh, studying each other.” Uther turned to Esther, still using that weird, slow voice and nodding like some knowing idiot. Behind a hand, he mouthed the name Legolas before nodding to Ashley, and Esther glared at him. Maybe losing her best friend wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“She means for the ethnography,” Esther said. “Obviously.”

“Obviously. Well.” Uther clapped his hands and rubbed them together, backing up toward his car. “I don’t want to keep you two from planning your not-date to study each other.”

“Uther,” Esther hissed, but he continued to open the door and get inside without her. “You are my ride home.”

“It’s not that far,” he said. “Ashley can walk you. Give you time for that planning.”

Esther was going to murder Uther. This was not the plan.

“I’ll see you for brunch this weekend.” He put on his sunglasses, despite the sun being long gone, and took off.

“Oh god, I miss brunch.” Ashley sighed, her eyes soft and her gaze distant.

Right. Now she was here. Alone. With Ashley.

Deep breath.

“Warm butter melting over a fluffy pancake.” Ashley’s gaze was a mile away. “And when you heat up the syrup just right so it drizzles over the side and you have to soak it up with each cakey bite.”

Esther’s mind followed Ashley’s, slicing into the pancake with the side of her fork, lapping up syrup until the piece was dripping, then for some reason, reaching across the table and offering the bite to Ashley, who waited, her lips soft and expectant, her gaze hungry.

Esther’s stomach rumbled, breaking the silence. She needed a glass of water. For some reason, all the moisture had left her mouth.

“Sorry.” Ashley clapped once, breaking them from the daydream and turned to Esther with a smile. This did nothing to settle Esther’s nerves. “Which way are we walking?”

Thank goodness, a question she could answer. Or at least something to break her silence. “You don’t have to walk me. You’re obviously here for something else. I can walk myself.”

“Oh.” Ashley’s smile wobbled and seemed like she might lose it, but she got it back in line. “It’s no trouble, really. Plus, buddy system and all.”

Fine. Esther turned and began down the path, a merry tap of heels behind her the only clue that Ashley was following.

“So. how does this ethnography thing work?” Ashley’s shoulder brushed hers, and Esther course corrected to make space for her. The contact tangled their orbits. No matter how closely Esther hugged the edge of the sidewalk, she remained aware of the exact distance between her shoulder and Ashley’s. “You just watch people and…write down what they do? Sounds a little creepy.”

Esther shrugged. “That happens. The point is to try to keep as much of your personal bias out of your summary. For example, I could see someone wandering the sidewalks at night in ankle boots and assume she has no sense of preservation for her ankles, but maybe she just came from an event that required formal footwear.”

“Or maybe,” Ashley flipped a lock of gold over her shoulder, “the extra inches make her feel powerful, like every step she takes is at a starter block. So, she wears heels constantly, but ankle boots are the best for wandering sidewalks at night.”

Esther’s cheek tugged into a smile. She let a lock of hair block it from sight. “You realize you’re already a giant, don’t you?”

“Jealous much?” Ashley propped the back of her hand under her chin like it was a pedestal and laughed at her own antics. “What else?”