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We ask Jules about her family, and she enthusiastically gushes about her three young children and recounts her romantic saga with her high school sweetheart turned husband.

Apparently she had been a stay-at-home mom up until last year, teaching private music lessons out of her living room until the school finally won her over when the previous orchestra teacher retired.

“I got connected with Liam through the after-school clubs,” she explains.

“I run a little jazz band, and he runs, like, three other clubs. Chess club, book club, debate…” She releases a whistling sigh.

“I’d heard he was thinking about a D&D club, too, but wouldn’t start it until the school year. I didn’t want to wait that long.”

As we talk, we have to pause every so often whenever someone recognizes Morgan.

She greets customers, booksellers, and even people she recognizes from college, and I swear she knows almost all of their names.

“How is your partner, Eric?” she asks, or “Did you finish your thesis you were telling me about?” She’s warm and friendly, and her laughs are loud and infectious.

Morgan reminds me of the popular girls from high school.

Not in the gorgeous stuck-up bitch sort of way, but in the I-can-make-friends-with-anyone and I-know-everyone-in-town way.

Only after she’s asked me and Jules a thousand questions does she finally talk more about herself.

How she worries about the store’s finances, misses her brother who’s traveling abroad, and hopes to host a book festival in Heller someday.

How she’s helping another bookseller with his script for a slice-of-life short film while also trying to work on her own novel.

Her hands are in dozens of projects, yet somehow she still finds time for D&D.

Even as the sky darkens outside the window, I find myself hoping for an excuse to stay longer.

There’s a coziness to their company that I can’t quite get over.

It’s not the comfort of a fifteen-year friendship like I have with Liam or the butterfly-inducing hangouts with Noah, but something different altogether.

As the conversation fades, I exhale a small sigh and begin to pack my things. Jules is staring at her phone, looking thoughtful. Her eyes bounce between me and Morgan curiously.

“What is it?” Morgan asks.

“My mom’s just asked if she can keep the kids tonight for a sleepover.” Jules delicately swirls her straw around her cup and sips up the last of her coffee. “What do you girls say we get out of here and treat ourselves to something a little stronger ?”

“But why Kain?” I ask.

Two hours later we’re sitting on the deck at Alchemist, three drinks deep.

The sun is a smudge of dark pink on the horizon, and the lights strung above us seem more luminous than usual.

The air still holds some of the weight left over from the day’s heat, but it’s not unbearable.

It’s a busy Saturday night at the brewery, and the conversations surrounding our table make for pleasant, buzzing background noise. I am blissfully, tipsily contented.

Jules is bopping her head in time to the music flowing from the speaker, counting each measure under her breath. When she realizes I’m talking to her, she shakes herself out of her daze and offers me a sheepish smile. “Sorry, what did you ask?”

“Why Kain?” I repeat. I splay my palms out on the sticky table.

“Jules, I’ve only known you for a month, but you’re maybe the sweetest person I’ve ever met in my life.

So, help me understand…” I grin, waiting for Morgan to stop giggling into her fist before I continue.

“Why are you playing a bloodthirsty, hellish, raging barbarian?”

Even now Jules looks like a total sweetheart. She shyly regards the two of us from under thick lashes, her hands clasped over her heart. Her curls bounce and her tulip-shaped earrings sway as she shakes her head.

Morgan and I watch as her mouth forms words, but I can’t hear what she says. She’s speaking too softly, and laughter from the neighboring table smothers her words.

“What?” Morgan barks.

“I said, sometimes I just get so angry !” Jules’s already high-pitched voice goes up an extra octave as she throws her hands upward. The couple behind us look alarmed at the outburst, and the old man sitting by himself shoots Jules a withering glare.

But instead of withdrawing into her shell, Jules presses on.

“Last semester, I had a mother threaten to sue the school because her son didn’t make first chair cello.

Last week, my daughter did a beautiful drawing of a dragon.

On my living room wall. In lipstick. And this afternoon, my husband—my wonderful, handsome, talented husband—asked me for the hundredth time to remind him where I put the kids’ overnight bag.

” Jules grips Morgan’s forearm. “It was in the same place it always is,” she stresses. “ The same place it always is. ”

“Oh girl.” Morgan throws her head back as she laughs. “I get why you wanted to play a big angry beefcake. Just hearing about it makes me want to pick up an axe and break shit.”

“Please don’t, though.”

His voice is so warm and so low, his tone all playfulness. Butterflies flutter around doing pirouettes in my stomach, and I spin to see Noah approaching with three glasses of water.

“No rolling for initiative in Alchemist,” I promise solemnly, repeating the words Liam always uses to start in-game combat. Rolling for initiative determines the order in which each character gets to make an attack. It decides who gets to make the first move.

If the girls were being honest with me and there really is something there…

Maybe I should roll for initiative.

His eyes snag on mine, and for one horrified, wonderful moment, I wonder if he can see my thoughts painted across my forehead. But with a smile he’s already gone, off to take care of some other customer. I’m left reeling, questioning just how reckless these last few drinks have inspired me to be.

Noah was so fucking thrilled when we arrived.

He did a double take when he first saw me, then his eyes widened when he spotted Jules and Morgan in my wake. He’d held his arms out to either side, a big grin splitting his beard. “Having a party without me, ladies?”

“Just a bit of a girls’ night,” Morgan teased.

All evening, he’s taken special care of us.

He’d bent over our table with his hand curled around my shoulder as he walked Morgan and Jules through the menu—“And that’s Sadie’s favorite, Sunshine Spirits”—brought out a gigantic pretzel with six different dipping sauces, recommended a few nonalcoholic options when Morgan told him she was our designated driver for the evening, and generally kept us company whenever he had a couple minutes to spare.

“Morgan,” Jules whines, her fingers laced around her glass of Sunshine. “I feel bad that you aren’t getting to have any fun. ”

“What do you mean? This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.

” Morgan had gently nursed her own beer for the first hour but had stuck with sweet tea since.

Jules and I safely left our cars at the bookstore to be picked up after tomorrow’s game.

“I don’t mind, Jules. We’re celebrating Sadie’s new art job anyway, and your…

” Morgan shares a look with me that has me biting the inside of my lip to keep from giggling.

I suppose Jules isn’t actually celebrating anything, but it’s clear to us that she doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to go out on her own without her kids in tow.

She should enjoy her night off to the fullest.

“Anyway,” Morgan says with a laugh. “It’s getting late, ladies. Tell me what you want, and the last round’s on me.”

I hesitate, but eventually order a half pour of Jar of Bees, a honey ale Noah had recommended. “Made with honey from real local bees!” he’d buzzed. Jules orders the same.

Morgan strides inside to where Noah waits behind the bar.

I prop my chin in my hand and watch them through the wide windows of the brewery, their bodies warped by the thick glass and hanging lights.

Morgan’s animatedly chatting about something, gesturing with her hands, but my eyes are on Noah as he pours.

On the way his long fingers wrap around the handle of the tap, how his wrist swivels dexterously as he fills the glass underneath it, how his biceps flex under the fabric of his—

“Look at you,” Jules says. I snap back to attention as she nudges me with her shoulder. She’s got her chin propped just as I do, and behind the lenses of her glasses her gray eyes are big and round and soft. It takes me longer than it should to realize that she’s imitating me.

“You’re pining. ” She lets out a dramatic, wistful sigh for effect.

“I am not!” It comes out louder than intended. “I am simply…admiring. I am simply—tipsy, okay?” I am simply full of excuses.

“Okay, Sadie.” She regards me with a small, knowing smile.

Morgan finally returns and passes two glasses to me and Jules, the beer inside richly gold and glittering. As the evening winds down, Jules questions Morgan about why she chose to play a dwarf, but I lose track of the conversation as I stare up at the budding stars in the sky.

I’m reminded of how many times in New York I would close down a bar with my co-workers, sipping at the watered-down tequila dregs in our margaritas before we swayed out into the night and onto the subway home.

Although I’m just as tipsy now as I had been a dozen other times with them, tonight feels nothing like my old city happy hours.

For one, hanging out with Jules and Morgan is…

fun. We aren’t drinking to forget our boss’s terrible pettiness, or to numb the stress of an overlong day.

We certainly aren’t bitching for hours on end, either, which is all I ever did with my co-workers, our complaints about our jobs, bad dates, rent prices, and roommates tasting more sour than our mojitos.

Morgan and Jules’s company feels easy and comfortable. With each new sip from my Jar of Bees, I allow myself to sink into the warmth of it, half listening to their debate about dwarves versus elves while rocking my head along with the music.

Morgan notices the dreamy, sleepy smile stretched across my face at the same time that the brewery’s lights come up, signaling that they’re now closed. “I think that’s our cue, girls.”

Jules yawns her affirmation.

As Morgan stands and threads her arms through mine and Jules’s, Noah comes to flank my other side. “Can I walk you all out?”

Of course I offer him my arm.

Stumbling slightly over our four pairs of feet, we snake out toward Morgan’s car in a line, our kind sober friends patiently steering me and Jules despite our giggles.

“You’ve got a really great place here, Noah,” Morgan finally says. “I’m sure you’ll see us again very soon.” Our linked arms fall as she reaches for her car keys, but I keep my arm entwined with Noah’s. There’s no rush to let go. He’s keeping me steady.

“Oh, I do hope so!” Jules gushes. “I want to see every step of Sadie’s mural.”

For once, I welcome the blush that warms my cheeks.

Morgan’s gaze pans across the three of us but pinballs briefly between me and Noah.

I watch an idea form in real time: for an instant, her eyes narrow, and then her lips press into a sly smile.

She nods to herself, and she reminds me so much of Liam in this instant.

He wears the same exact poker face every time he throws a complete plot twist at us in D&D.

“Well,” she says with a sigh. “I suppose we should get on the road. We’ve got a long way to go, with Jules on one side of town and Liam on the other… ”

I’m too slow and tipsy, and I don’t see it immediately. Morgan’s trap is well laid, and Noah’s ever-present kindness—or genuine interest, if Morgan and Jules are to be believed—ensures that he takes the bait.

“I live close by Liam’s. I can take Sadie home,” he offers. Then, to me: “If you want.”

“Oh, are you sure?” Morgan rocks from one foot to the other. “It’s up to you, Sadie.”

Jules is so drunk she can’t hide her shit-eating grin. She hiccups a laugh as she climbs into Morgan’s car.

“Okay,” I say, turning back to Noah. “If you don’t mind.”