Page 51 of The New Place

“You good?”

“Yes.”

Pat points to the cafe. “I was gonna check in on things after abandoning work all weekend. Want a tea? Some wine?”

“No.” Yes, there. The car hums to life. “I need to get home.”

“Alright.” Pat gives him a long look before he presses the door shut.

Ned calls before Abbot’s driven halfway down the block, and Abbot can nearly sense in the air the text Pat sent him. For a moment, he debates not answering, but it’s Ned.

“I’m going to set up a meeting with us and Newbury,” Abbot says, forgetting he was supposed to start with hello.

But Ned will forgive him this as well. “Great,” he says, easy and light. “Good drive? Did Pat talk your ear off?”

Abbot has to work to manage a response, but Ned has always been worth that extra push of effort. “Both are still firmly attached.”

“What a relief. Get any juicy details?”

“He’s going to become a sommelier.”

“Like I know what that is.”

“Graduate from drinking wine from a bag.”

“Oh, he’s head over heels. Abbot⁠—”

“I’m nearly home. I should stop at the grocery store.”

“Okay,” Ned says, his voice soft. “Do you want to talk?”

“No.”

“You can,” Ned says. “To me.”

“I know.”

“Hey. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“We’ll figure all this out.”

Newbury, he means. Jobs and moving and the shifting in their lives.

But Abbot is suddenly too tired for a genuine discussion, and any of Ned’s usual gentle probing. “Luckily you already know how to uncork a bottle of wine.”

“You’d hope as a bartender, Pat would too,” Ned says, and Thank you, Abbot thinks, for following him down this other path, away from sincerity to a mercifully easy, useless conversation.

“I’ll have to investigate if all his bottles are actually twist-off.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Ned says. “Think he’s just refilling them from a bag?”

“I may reconsider letting him serve me.”

Ned laughs, and yes, this will be fine. Everything will be.

It has to be. For Ned.