Page 130 of The Fall

Hayes clatters his dishes back onto his tray, then pats my shoulder on his way out. “Wear a shirt that doesn’t make you look haunted.”

What do you give the man who steadied you through storms and then hands you back the sky? I need something that says “thank you” without screaming “I’m in love with you.”

Blair doesn’t acquire objects; he assumes responsibilities. His gift to me—that he doesn’t even know he gave—was a space on his line, a seat next to him on the plane, wanting my opinion. He gave me his trust. I want to give him… everything. How do you wrap love in paper and a bow? What do you give the man whose heartbeat I can still feel against my cheek, even though he’s never held me that way?

His life doesn’t need things. He wouldn’t wear a bracelet or hang up a painting. I could offer him nothing and he’d say thank you.

And suddenly I know.

Lily bursts through the front door before it’s all the way open. She’s in a hot-pink dress covered in dinosaur stickers and a crown slips sideways on her head like it’s been through battle. She charges me, and I catch her as I cross the threshold.

“You came!” she yells into my shoulder.

“Of course I came. I had to see if the dinosaur princess was real.”

She leans back, beaming. “Did you bring your Nerf?”

I’m empty-handed. “I didn’t know there’d be a battle.”

“There’s always a battle.”

I lay my hand over my heart. “I shall never make this mistake again.”

She leads me inside, where everything smells like orange blossom and cake. Plastic dinosaurs stand guard along the baseboards in the living room and Erin’s laugh drifts from the kitchen.

And there’s Blair, smiling at Erin, tucked behind a kitchen-table chair like it’s a shield between him and the world. He’s in swim trunks and flip-flops, a bottle of water clutched in his hands. He wears a casual linen button-up, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His eyes meet mine, and he nods a hello.

He’s a stranger I know better than anyone.

Erin wraps me up in a warm hug. “Glad you made it.” Behind her, the kitchen is dressed in paper streamers and handmade Happy Birthday signs with lots of stickers and pink.

A blur of pink and a shriek of delight shatter the stillness. Lily rockets past us through the open patio doors and disappears into a pillow fort of patio cushions and beach towels. “Torey!” she shouts from outside. “Come play!”

She calls me out to her fortress of pillows, where she has two more plastic crowns, and she holds them out to both Blair and me. Blair gamely takes his and perches on one of the patio chairs.

“Torey, you can sit near the Queen.” There’s a bright-yellow stuffed dinosaur sporting a kids’ hockey jersey in a place of honor. I ease down beside her beneath a beach towel roof. Lily grabs a plastic egg, cracks it open dramatically, and reveals a gummy worm inside the shell. “This is her baby. You’re in charge of guarding it.”

Blair watches me take charge of the gummy egg solemnly. “How about me, Lils? What’s my job?”

“You’re the knight that steals the princess.”

Hayes appears, wielding tongs and wearing swim trunks, an apron, and no shirt, and brings with him the smell of charcoaland flame-grilled meat. He thumps Blair’s chest. “You game to man the grill, Sir Callahan?”

Blair pretend-threatens to push him into the pool. Hayes ignores him, speaking to me over Blair’s shoulder. “You like ‘em seared or cremated, Your Majesty?”

“Still breathing.”

Blair snorts. Hayes rolls his eyes. “You both are hopeless.”

Erin calls Lily in to help her with the cake, and I’m released from my egg-guarding duties to join Hayes and Blair.

Hayes pops the grill latch; char and heat wrap us in a sweet haze. We move like a line: Blair flips patties while I hold out plates for the good burgers—cooked rare—and the gross ones—charcoal. Lily swans out of the house bearing a tray of fixings, and it all comes together. In no time, we’re seated around the patio table—sans cushions—building up our burgers.

Lily ends up with more ketchup on her face than on her burger, exactly like her father. Blair and I catch each other’s eye across the table. He smothers a grin, and I do the same.

When Lily finishes, she wiggles out of her seat and starts setting up every one of her dinosaurs in a circle around my chair, until Erin says she needs her help to finish decorating the cake. They head inside, and Hayes, Blair, and I settle into the evening, low-level trash talk and bravado flying back and forth between Hayes and Blair.

“Don’t tell me you think that goal in Edmonton was clean,” Hayes says, elbow crooked on the back of his chair.