The afternoon kept going.
Lucy had officially adopted the billiard table. She was explaining her strategy to Steven with the confidence of someone who had been playing for years, though she'd only been playing for forty minutes. Steven was nodding along in the way people nodded when they'd given up contributing and were just letting the other person run. He occasionally opened his mouth. Lucy talked over it every single time without breaking stride. He'd stopped looking surprised and moved into something closer to acceptance, and then past that into what looked like genuine enjoyment.
"No, see, the angle is the whole thing," Lucy was saying, demonstrating with the cue. "People focus on how hard they hit it but that's never it."
"You hit that one pretty hard," Steven said.
"That was part of the strategy."
"It went off the table."
"Also part of the strategy."
Ethan was watching from the sofa, arm draped over the back, looking completely at peace with the world.
Across the room, Xavier had drifted toward Bryan the way calm people sometimes found each other without planning to. They weren't talking much, but the silence between them was easy. Xavier had refilled Bryan's drink at some point without being asked and Bryan had accepted it without making a thing of it. That was apparently all it had taken.
Anna had asked Alice four more skincare questions. Alice had answered all of them with the same level of detail, which was not very much, and Anna had typed every response into her phone.
"Okay, but sunscreen," she said. "What kind."
"I don't know. My mom buys it."
"Does she buy everything?"
"For skincare, yes."
Anna looked at him. "You just use whatever she gives you?"
"Yes. Every day."
"And it works."
"Apparently."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she looked back at her phone and said, with great feeling, "You are so annoying."
"You keep saying that."
"I keep meaning it." She shook her head. "To think the best-looking person in the room is a guy."
Alice looked away.
There was something almost comfortable about sitting here, in a room that had no real reason to be as good as it was, with people he had known for less than a week and who were somehow easy to be around. Not all of them. Lucas was still on the sofa, arms folded, living in his own world.
Anna followed his gaze and then looked back. "Don't mind him," she said. "He's like this to everyone. It's why he has more enemies than friends."
"I don't mind him," Alice said.
"Good. He'll be back to normal in about twenty minutes."
"What's normal for him?"
Anna thought about it genuinely. "Rude, but less aggressively rude. He stops talking as much. There's a difference."
"That's a low bar."
"I know. But it's the one we have."
Alice looked at Lucas again. Whatever was going on behind that expression, he was keeping it there for now. Alice had no plans to go near it.
Ethan leaned over. "He's calming down."
"I can see that."
"He does this after a thing. Goes quiet. Then acts like nothing happened."
"Does it work?"
Ethan thought about it. "Kind of. It's hard to stay mad at him because he just stops and everything resets. Also he's pushy but he's reliable. When it counts."
Alice looked at Lucas, who was very deliberately not looking at anyone.
"Must be convenient," Alice said.
"For him, extremely," Ethan said.
Then Bryan checked his phone, stood up, and said, "We should head out."
Lucy looked up from the table. "Already?"
"Traffic."
She opened her mouth. Checked the clock on the wall. Set the cue down, pointed at Steven, and said, "Rematch. That is a promise and I am keeping it."
"Anytime," Steven said, and meant it.
Lucy pointed at the table once more like she was leaving a formal notice, picked up her bag, and was ready in thirty seconds.
Alice stood. Anna stood at the same time, crossed the room, and pulled Alice into a hug before he could do anything about it. Brief and real, the kind that had been waiting for the right moment since earlier.
She pulled back. "Come back."
"We'll see," Alice said.
"I mean it. We're friends now. Come back."
"Don't come back," Lucas said from the sofa, without looking up.
"We will," Ethan said from across the room.
"I'm not talking to you."
"I know. I answered anyway."
Lucas had nothing for that. He pulled his arms tighter and stared at the middle distance.
Ethan walked them to the door. The hallway outside was cooler, quieter. The door swung shut behind them and the sounds of the room went muffled.
"Same time next week?" Ethan asked.
"Maybe," Alice said.
Ethan grinned like that was the best answer he could have gotten. "I'll take it."
He held the door until they were moving, then let it go.