Terrence is standing beside the stove while I cook scrambled eggs. “Let me get this right. You’re flying back for a BBQ that’s not for your family, but for the family of the girl you’ve been moping around after ever since I met you?”

Sprinkling salt, I remind him, “Which has only been a couple months.”

“Exactly!” He drops his leg and smacks the counter, rattling the stack of plates. “You need more time before you put yourself in that close of a proximity! When I left Michael I could not see that man for a year. Then and only then. You think I could trust myself not to act a fool? Think again. Know thyself, Logan. Know thyself!”

He’s voicing my fears, and not making this easier. “Her brother is coming home from Chicago. He’s like my brother, too. Her parents are my second parents, I was at their house all the time ever since I was a kid.”

Johan walks in with a towel wrapped around his narrow waist. “My body is loving these nightly performances that all the pansy singers can’t stop fucking griping about. They need to hush their ungrateful asses up.”

Elliot calls over from where he’s reading a magazine on a couch stained by parties before our time. “This is what I was meant to be doing!”

Terrence and I glance over, then he returns to his mission. “Logan, do not for one second think that you will come back to New York after this trip and be floating on puffy clouds of happiness. You will be a sloppy mess we’ll have to clean up!”

Johan jumps onto the counter and picks at a bowl of figs, interest piqued. “What’s this I hear? Our Georgia peach is flying south for some nookie?”

I chuckle, “I wish.”

“No, he is flying south because he is pussy-whipped but isn’t getting any pussy! Give me one of those. Thank you. Now Logan, if you go then heed my warning and tell that stubborn addiction to release you from its gnarly clutches!”

“I’m not addicted,” I mutter, sliding the cooked eggs onto a plate and sprinkling crumbled feta over them. We work our bodies so hard. Nobody’s scarfing cake every night, but adding cheese to a meal is just plain necessary. “She asked me to come. I’m showing her I can.”

They stare at me, and start hollering like I’m the biggest dumbass ever created. Elliot throws his magazine at me, but the fluttering pages don’t make it halfway across the large room.

Joel rushes out. “What’s up?”

Johan’s towel is barely doing its job when he spreads his legs and slaps the counter. “Oh, you’ll show her you’re wrapped around her pinky!”

Terrence wipes his eyes from laughing so hard. “Boy, you are daft.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Daft? They still say that word?”

“I’m bringing it back. Because I am looking at this!” He waves a circle in front of my face. “Daft daft daft daft DAFT.”

Joel mutters, “I missed something,” and sticks a fork in eggs he didn’t bother to separate from the main plate. I don’t know why I even brought out more.

From the couch, Elliott stretches to smugly announce, “You know what we see every Monday morning? You looking at the clock and checking your damn phone every two minutes. Oh, it’s Monday! Is it Monday yet? Why is there any day other than Mondays?”

I dig in, despite their efforts to make me lose my appetite. Fact is, my stomach growls me awake every morning since Galloway turned our musical into boot camp. I mumble through a mouthful, “Look. She’s my best friend. She calls. I answer. Just because you nimrods don’t have someone that special to you doesn’t make it wrong.”

“Special?” Johan chortles. “Oh, I have special. And excellent. And dayum, did we really just do that?! Only with me, I’m actually getting laid by those adjectives! Are you ever going to have sex with this girl? Because I have witnessed zero nights where you are not A to the L to the LONE.”

“Sex isn’t everything.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

Joel cuts in. “You think you love her?”

“I know I love her.”

They stare at me, and eat their breakfast with silence in full swing. Wow. That’s worse than an argument.

Maybe I shouldn’t go.

But I have to see her again.

I came to New York thinking she’d be here, too. I need closure, and to make sure she hasn’t changed her mind about me. Foolish? Maybe. But this is love we’re talking about.