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Tressa Fay laughed. I will be there so fast, Meryl.

You better! Everyone is here. Everyone is coupled. Well, Linds is throupled, because Harper showed up! I finally met zir! When Brooklynn and Linds introduced zir, it was adorable. Also, also, I changed after work, and I’m wearing my brand-new math T-shirt just for you. It’s pink with a calculator and says SHOW YOUR WORK.

Tressa Fay jumped up from the sofa with so much urgent intention, Epinephrine and Spring complained at her.

“I know, babies, but this is an emergency. I have a funny engineer on the line, and you know how I feel about redheads, also. You, Eps, for example.” She scritched his head and then dashed up the stairs and into the bedroom she shared with Meryl, digging through their closet until she found her lucky jeans and a clean button-down.

She had been taking pictures for Insta in an extremely horny black mesh and brown velvet bodysuit, very strappy, and she decided to put both the jeans and the button-down over the bodysuit in the hope this decision would have favorable results when she and Meryl got home. She pulled on her boots and was on her way to Canyon in less than ten minutes.

Tressa Fay cursed downtown parking but eventually found a spot for her tiny green Fiat. Even with the cold, damp weather, people were spilling out of the restaurant. She jogged to the narrow two-story building, which sat in the same row as the old theater. On warm days, Canyon would open its entire front wall of windows to let people sit at an open-air bar looking out at the street, but right now it was closed and fogged from the people and food inside, the light casting a square on the dark sidewalk and the smokers huddled there.

It was packed. She looked over the bar and didn’t see Meryl at first glance.

“Can I help you?” The hostess widened her eyes. “Oh! Hi. Um, Tressa Fay? Is it you, the woman who cut my hair and changed my entire life?” She grinned.

“Katie!” Tressa Fay had to shove her hands in her own pockets to keep from fixing one of Katie’s curls near her face. “You’re here! Yay!”

“Yes! You remember. I love this haircut so much. I have never loved my…” She gestured around her face. “Not ever. But I’ve felt completely different since I left your chair.”

“Can I?” Tressa Fay reached out.

“Yes!” Katie leaned forward, and Tressa Fay played with the hair near Katie’s face, changing her part, then stepping back. “You’re amazing. What can I help you with? Oh! You must be meeting the big party that I just—”

“Tressa Fay!” James shouted over the crowd, waving from a huge table in the corner.

Katie laughed. “Let me bulldoze the way there for you.”

Tressa Fay put her hands on Katie’s shoulders from behind, and they crashed through the crowd to the table, where Mary was on James’s lap, Gayle pored over the menu, Tressa Fay’s dad was laughing at something Jen had said in his ear—which gave her a good view of his new look, the hair getting longer and curling on top, shaving years off his appearance—and Michael was playing with Guy’s hair. She’d just given them a haircut yesterday, one they realized they were ready for after starting testosterone. They looked like a snow fairy in a fantasy novel, and it was obvious Michael liked it.

When Tressa Fay had shown a picture to Meryl at work, Meryl had written back, Oh! I’ve always loved that cut .

As she sat down, Meryl, Linds, and Linds’s two baefriends, Brooklynn and Harper, broke through the crowd from the direction of the restroom, and Meryl skipped to Tressa Fay and wrapped her arms around her. Her new T-shirt was just as tight and sexy as Tressa Fay could have wanted.

“It’s you,” Tressa Fay said, dropping a kiss on Meryl’s lips.

“I just looked at your Insta when I was waiting for the other folks in the bathroom. Um. Those are going to get so taken down.”

“I used Post-its!” Tressa Fay protested. “But even if they do get taken down, it doesn’t matter, because I’m wearing that bodysuit right now.” She pulled her collar aside to reveal the black strap.

“Let’s go,” Meryl said, grabbing her hand as if to pull her into the crowd.

Tressa Fay laughed. “No. You promised me churros and limeade in your text, and churros and limeade I shall have.”

Tressa Fay and Meryl squeezed in around the table just as the appetizers started coming. None of them could really hear each other, but it didn’t matter. They did this once a week when they could, trying out new restaurants and revisiting old favorites. Not everyone could always come, but tonight Mary had group-chatted everyone and insisted so that they could all meet Harper, who was so charming and made Brooklynn and Linds so right .

Tressa Fay had wondered if Mary and James were going to make an announcement, but then Meryl told her no, because she’d already talked to James about it a couple of weeks ago, breaking the promise they’d made to each other not to tell James and Mary they were going to be engaged in February. Meryl said that James and Mary had been delighted but had decided to hold off and give their future selves something good for their moment.

Tonight, it was just that Mary wanted to make sure no one acted too hermity now that the weather had gotten cold.

“Isn’t Harper so fine?” Mary yelled at Tressa Fay from across the table. “Did I tell you it was me who made this match? I met zir at the taproom, and I was like, if you’re, you know, poly, I have two I’d like to introduce you to. I’m a genius!”

“You are!” Tressa Fay laughed, watching James kiss Mary’s temple in a very delicious manner, the vintage Jheri curls she’d given him glossy in the low light.

Tressa Fay ate her weight in churros and chocolate ganache. She didn’t realize she’d been staring into the middle distance, letting the noise crash around her, until she felt Meryl’s mouth against her ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

She turned and smiled at her beautiful, darling, hot, smart girl Meryl, who took such good care of all of her people. Including herself. “Yes.”

Of course, it took more than a moment to extricate themselves from the table and say goodbye, and by the time they walked past the big red coat rack by the entrance and pushed through the door into weather that had turned decidedly cold, it was dark and very late.

There was only the sound of the wind from the river and Meryl’s hand warm in hers. Tressa Fay took a deep breath of the cold air.

“It smells like snow already,” Meryl said as they walked to Tressa Fay’s car.

It did. There was that indescribable ozone bite to every gust that whistled down the street, and the black clouds in the deep violet sky looked heavy. Tressa Fay had just decided to outrun the bitter cold to her car when she saw it.

A snowflake.

Then another.

Just a few, spinning in the wind, not even anything you could call a flurry. But she stopped anyway.

“You wanted to kiss in the snow. We wanted to. We wanted to get to there.” Tressa Fay tugged Meryl’s hand.

Meryl smiled at Tressa Fay, then stepped close. “We did get there. We’re right here. The night we met.”

Tressa Fay put her arms around her, suddenly overwhelmed, but Meryl grabbed the placket of her shirt and pulled her down until their lips were almost touching.

“You’re going to kiss me.” Tressa Fay smiled against Meryl’s mouth.

“So much, I’m going to kiss you.” Meryl rubbed her bottom lip against Tressa Fay’s.

“When?” But Tressa Fay couldn’t help but pull Meryl’s irresistible upper lip into her mouth, and then they were kissing slow, so hot compared to the snowy wind whipping around them and their chilled hands reaching for each other, touching every soft place they could find around their coats and hats.

Such a good kiss.

Best one so far.

THE END

(except there is no such thing)