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He was looking at every face that had ever come through our door.

For a second, the whole weight of December slumped down at the table with us, uninvited, and none of us had the heart to make it leave.

A long beat passed.

The candle at the table’s center guttered.

Then Finn drew in a breath through his nose and straightened. The dry came back over him like slipping on a coat. “Enough of that,” he said. “Who wants more wine?”

“God, yes,” Chase said, too fast, yet grateful.

“Me,” said Dante, hefting his nearly empty glass.

“Pour it,” I said, downing the last of mine.

Finn poured, and the moment let go of us the way those moments did when someone was kind enough to break them. Chase topped off the water glasses just to have something to do with his hands. He was still pink around his eyes. He caught Finn watching him.

And there it was, on Finn’s face.

That look. The one that gave the whole dry act away. The one that said Chase was the best thing that ever walked into his life via sidewalk collision. I caught it, and I understood it, because I’d started giving the same look to the man next to me without even realizing I was doing it.

A table like that let you see the future in its surface.

Finn and Chase were seven years in and still ribbing each other like the first week, still lighting up. There they were, and there we were, weeks into this, terrified and new. The older couple across the table wasn’t a warning. It was a promise. It was a picture of a thing I could still have this far along my journey.

If I was lucky.

If I didn’t screw it up.

If the world let me keep it.

“I called some banks,” I heard myself say, unable to keep my mind off December, no matter how much wine Finn poured. “About the building. Two of them. First one basically laughed me out of the—”

Dante’s hand came over onto my forearm. It wasn’t fast. It was just his hand, warm, settling over my arm that had gone tense without my noticing. I stopped and looked at him.

“There’s plenty of time to talk about that later,” he said, quiet, just for me, though the table heard it. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until it’s done, but not tonight.” His thumb moved once across my skin, the way I’d done to him a hundred times. “Let’s just enjoy tonight, okay? You’re allowed. After all, it’s a double date, and Chase used the word ‘pining.’”

I blinked at him. Only a few weeks earlier, this man wouldn’t have reached across a table in public if the building were on fire. He’d have sat behind his own quiet and let me carry my tense arm alone. Yet there he was with his hand on me in front of God and Finn and Chase and a wine list, telling “the fixer” to set his burden down, if only for one night.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re right.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turned my arm over under his hand so we were palm to palm, and I let it all go, the whole heavy thing. “Not tonight.”

“Good.” He squeezed once and didn’t let go.

“For the record,” Finn said, lifting his glass again, dry as a bone, “that was the single most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed. I’m going to need the pair of you to never do it again in front of me. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“You cried at our wedding,” Chase said.

“That was allergies.”

“You gave a speech, Finn. You had cue cards.”

“Allergies can be emotional and well documented. They’re multidimensional.” Finn sniffed. “Now, are we done with feelings, or should I order another bottle and we can all take turns weeping about tea?”

“Another bottle,” Dante said, his hand still warm over mine.