“You okay there, Kimball?” I asked Cole as I entered the kitchen. I’d been so caught up in watching— processing —Wes and Laila’s reunion that I hadn’t realized Cole had left until I heard the door shut behind him. By the time I got into

the kitchen, after hanging up Wes’s coat, he was beginning to plate our dinner.

“Sure,” he replied without looking up. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I shook my head gently. “No reason.” I joined him at the prep counter and picked up the tongs to begin mixing the salad he

had prepared. “You’re not buying it?”

“Buying what?”

“I don’t know.” I picked up a slice of cucumber and slipped it into my mouth. “The latest redemption and reunion tour from

the Adelaide Springs class of 2003, I guess. Not buying it?”

He looked up at me for just a moment and then returned his eyes to the plates and grumbled under his breath. “I don’t know.”

I shrugged and started tossing again. “Laila seems happy to see him.”

“Of course she is. Laila is good and trusting and loving and chooses to believe the best about everyone.”

“And you not so much?”

He pulled the serving towel from his shoulder and wiped his hands with it. “Well, no offense, but up until a few minutes ago

I would have thought me and you not so much.”

“A few minutes ago?” I set the tongs down and crossed my arms as I faced him. “What changed a few minutes ago?”

We both tilted our heads toward the front as we heard the door open. “You two looked pretty cozy,” he whispered. “What’s that

about?”

“Oh, that?” I waved my hand in front of me. “No. Don’t read anything into that. He was helping me with my scarf.” Not that I needed a scarf, mind you, considering I was about to melt into a puddle of attraction, confusion, and questionable

life choices.

“Oh. Okay. Sure.”

I lowered my voice an octave and impersonated him. “‘Oh. Okay. Sure.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cole’s eyebrow rose as he considered my question. Or, I was guessing, considered me .

I was in a unique position among our class of five, I knew. Brynn and Wes had both left without saying goodbye. Cole and Laila

stayed. But I left and still occasionally came home for Christmas. I had moved away and moved on and had a life they knew

very little about, but we still had the bond of the first half of our lives. Having said all that, we certainly hadn’t figured

out what the new version of our friendship looked like.

And I knew that wasn’t for lack of trying on Cole and Laila’s part.

For the first couple of months, they had given me space. Hugs whenever they bumped into me on the street. Invitations to dinner.

Kind, optimistic understanding when I turned down almost all said invitations to dinner. And then they’d begun doubling down

on their efforts a bit more. Laila sent notes home to me via my dad, and Cole dropped off samples from new recipes he was

trying on the porch.

Ultimately, my avoidance of the Kimballs (I hated calling it avoidance , though of course it totally was) had absolutely nothing to do with them. The Sudworths had made attempts to connect when they were in town, too, and I was equally good at avoiding them.

Newlyweds. They weren’t all supposed to be newlyweds at our age any more than I was supposed to be a widow. Friendships outgrow their

normal life cycles under the best of circumstances, even when everyone follows the same pattern. But when one friend’s love

story—one friend’s life as she knew it—is ending while all the others’ are beginning, what do you have to grab onto?

Cole sighed and shook his head. “Forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“It’s just... I don’t know, Addie. I guess it’s just that I had a lot of years of experience walking in on you and Wes

in the middle of being you and Wes, so don’t feed me this ‘helping you with your scarf’ nonsense. I really just don’t understand

how he can show up here out of the blue and just like that...” He snapped his fingers. “I mean, aren’t you mad?”

“At Wes?”

“ Of course at Wes!” He looked over my head toward the dining room door and then gently grabbed my elbow and pulled me farther back into

the kitchen. “Maybe it’s none of my business.” He ran his hand through his dark waves and then crossed his arms. “No, you

know what? I’m sorry, but I do think it’s my business. Just a little bit. Because I was the one standing beside you, holding

out hope that he’d come back when everyone else—even hopeful, bighearted, loving Laila—began trying to recover by acting like

he’d never existed. And—”

“I don’t need you to protect me, Cole. I’m a big girl.”

“I know that.”

“And the fact is, no, it isn’t any of your business. And as for whether I’m mad at Wes?” I laughed bitterly. “There are so

many other things to be mad about. Wes isn’t even a blip on my anger radar anymore. Truly.”

Cole took a deep breath. “Hmm. Okay.”

“What? Go ahead. Say it.”

His lips scrunched over to one side of his face as he once again gave thoughtful consideration to all I had said.

“I missed Brynn when she left, and I missed you when you went off to the Air Force Academy and beyond. And yeah, if I’m being honest, I was mad at both of you.

Brynn for just taking off and you for cutting us off. Not staying in touch.”

“Cole—”

“But it was okay, you know? It was awful, and it was especially awful because I had to watch Laila suffer through losing you

both, but it was okay. I understood. Or I thought I did, at least. Brynn’s life—her mom—was horrible. We all knew that. So

no matter how upset I was that she left the way she did, there was always a part of me that was glad she got away. And I told

myself there were too many memories for you here. I told myself that no matter how much we loved you and wanted to be there

for you, you just couldn’t separate us from him.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know if that was it or if it was just a line

I fed myself in order to feel better, but it was how I coped.”

“I think you were probably onto something,” I whispered.

“But him ?” He motioned toward the dining room with his chin. “I had nothin’. I still have nothin’. And look, Addie, I want him to

be back. I really do. I mean, I saw it with Brynn, so yeah, I believe it can happen. But I’m sorry; it’s going to take a little

more than an apology from a man I barely even recognize—a polished, practiced politician, mind you—for me to trust him again.

And maybe you know something I don’t. I know Laila said you’ve spent some time with him. Obviously, I haven’t. All I know

for sure right now is that whatever Laila and I walked in on a few minutes ago looked a whole lot more like the past than

what I had imagined in the present. So... okay. It’s none of my business. Fine. You can obviously handle this however you

like. I, for one, don’t know how I would handle losing him again. For right now, I think I’m better off letting him still

be gone.”

I nodded. “I get that.”

“Everything okay back here?” Laila asked as she poked her head around the corner.

Cole looked up at her and his face lit up, as it still always managed to in her presence, even after all these years. “Yeah.

We’ll be right out.”

She bounced away, back to the dining room, and Cole and I sighed in weighty unison, then chuckled about it.

We might not have spent nearly as much time together in the second half of our lives as we had the first, but we still understood each other enough to accurately interpret the moment.

We worried about Laila’s tender heart getting trampled on, but we would never want her to be anything other than who she was—open, vulnerable, genuine.

And I knew Cole considered himself charged with guarding the perimeter of her heart.

It was his job to fight off threats so that Laila could keep being Laila.

“Thank you for caring so much, Cole. Really. And for the record, I’m not putting any of my eggs in the basket of ‘our Wes’

being back, or anything like that. I just think I sort of like spending time with this new guy who came to town. If I’m being

honest, it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed”— if I’m being honest —“anything.”

There it was. That look of pity that usually filled everyone’s eyes when they talked to me. The one that said, Bless her heart. Her husband died, you know. To Cole’s credit, he made it go away quickly. For most people it seemed like a prerequisite and a kindness they thought they

were bestowing on me when, really, being caught in the sympathy tractor beam was agony for me and only made them feel better about their own lives. I knew that wasn’t the case with Cole, but I was still relieved when he wiped away the

sadness and sympathy and replaced it with the focused eyes and furrowed brow that I knew represented his concern. Concern

that came from love.

“Just be careful.” He reached out and squeezed my hand and then began issuing orders. “Grab that salad, and let’s get out

there. We have VIPs dining at table seven. And a United States senator, too, if the rumors are to be believed.”

***

“Well, some things never change,” I said to Wes once we had climbed back into Beulah.

“What do you mean?”

“You and Laila. Half the time Cole and I just sat there looking at each other, having no idea what the two of you were laughing about.”

He chuckled and latched his seat belt. “I’d forgotten how much I love her. The big memories are you or Cole, or sometimes

all five of us, of course. Daredevil stuff with Brynn. But I’d forgotten just how many of the best moments were spent laughing

with Laila, the two of us in our own little world—usually making fun of how serious you and Cole were about everything.”

I threw my arm over the back of the seat and looked behind me to begin backing out. “Yeah, that was always what we figured.”

“Isn’t it weird,” he began, “seeing them together like that? Is it weird for you? I mean, on one hand, it’s about time.”

“Amen to that.”

“But it’s still weird, right?”

“Not as weird as you and me not being together.”