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“I also have a real job.”

“You know what I mean.” She waves me off.

Micah continues. “He’s a good guy. Funny once he warms up. Loves Jesus.”

My head snaps toward him. That last detail lands differently.

No one appears to notice except Micah.

His eyes stay on me for one second longer, not pushing, just acknowledging that he knows what that means to me.

I glance toward the window.

Dallas stretches beyond the glass in flat rooftops and late September sunlight. Somewhere below us, people are arriving at the hospital, leaving it, beginning things, ending things.

I should say no.

I am twenty-seven years old. I do not need four adults arranging a blind date beside a hospital bassinet.

“No,” I finally say, reaching for my coffee and taking another sip.

“We dare you,” Harper says.

There it is. I should have known this was coming.

I look at her. She smiles, but there is something gentler beneath it.

“One coffee,” she says. “That’s all.”

Ivy nods. “You love coffee.”

“That is not a reason to date someone.”

“It is enough reason to have coffee with someone.”

Gray looks at Charlie. “Your aunts are intense.”

Micah pulls out his phone. “Want his number?”

I hesitate.

The dare tradition didn’t start with me.

It started years before we met.

Back when Ivy and Harper were in high school, daring each other to do ridiculous things because somehow it made being sixteen a little less terrifying.

Sing karaoke in front of strangers.

Order something neither of them could pronounce.

Talk to the cute boy before the lunch bell rang.

When the three of us met freshman year of college, they invited me in.

The dares changed after that.

Not overnight.