At some point in adulthood, I had reached a point where most days started to blend together. Things mostly went the same—on a work day, I did the “work day” routine if it was a weekend, I chose from one of maybe four different ones. Maybe I would be going to the farmers market that day, maybe I’d be going for a run, or maybe I would choose to have an epic lazy day at home.

But for the most part, things didn’t change all that much. Small things could be exciting—and I loved the small things—but things didn’t ever really rock the boat.

When I woke up that morning, though, I knew something monumental had shifted. Before I even started to remember the previous night, before the pieces started falling back into place, I woke up knowing that something was different.

As soon as reality hit me again, my eyes shot open. Sun was streaming in the window, and I turned to my side.

The other half of the bed was empty.

Oh, God, what had I done?

It… couldn’t have been a dream, right? Instinctively, my hand shot up to my lips, gently touching them as if I could somehow feel the difference. Lips that hadn’t kissed my childhood best friend, versus lips that had.

The house was silent, and my head was pounding, a hangover like I hadn’t felt in months. I got up and paced around, feeling the soreness in my legs from the dancing the night before.

Russ was nowhere to be found. I peeked into the guest room, and not only was the bed empty, but all of his stuff was gone.

Shit. Fuck.

Either I had imagined everything that had happened last night, or… worse, I had driven him away. It made sense that he would freak out—hazy patches of memory floated back to me now, and I distinctly remembered begging him to come to bed with me. I’d told him I “wanted him there.”

It was a stupid, gut reaction, but immediately I went to the front window of the house, checking to see if his truck was even still parked outside on our street. It was, of course—it was stupid to think he would move out of Rose Falls just because I’d made a complete fool of myself the night before.

But it was what my instincts told me. An alarm bell, or muscle memory, telling me that Russ was going to leave. That I wasn’t enough to make him stay.

I hadn’t been enough eight years ago, at least.

A tightness gripped my chest, and I crossed back into the bedroom, picking up my phone. There were two text messages. One from Russ, that made my heart rate pick up:

>>RUSS: They delivered my bed. I’m heading back home. Thank you for letting me stay with you, Dev.

And then a second text, from Angelo:

>>ANGELO: Hello, Devin. Would today be good for you to go over the copper etching down at the studio? I’d love to see you.

I was slightly annoyed with Angelo’s text—I knew it was another excuse to see me outside of class, and I was ninety percent sure he would end up hitting on me once we were there.

But a mix of relief and anxiety coursed through me when I read Russ’ text. On the one hand, it was good that Russ was at least still speaking to me. He hadn’t mentioned anything about the previous night, though.

Maybe it was something better left forgotten. But I knew I’d never be able to.

I collapsed back onto my bed. I needed a strategy going forward, but I had no fucking clue what the protocol was.

What was I supposed to say, when I saw him again?

“Russ! Hi. Appreciated the orgasm. Want to grab lunch sometime?”

“Hi, Russ. I know you may regret it, but just know I haven’t come like that in years.”

“I know that our having sex may have ruined your ability to see me as a true friend, and now you’ll forever know me as Devin the Sex-Crazed Drunkard, but it was worth it, don’t you think?”

I groaned, turning my face down against my pillow. There was no good way to approach it.

I’d hooked up with my friend, and he’d left the next morning without mentioning it. He was probably over at his house, regretting it all as much as I was.

I picked up my phone and dialed Emmett’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Emmett. It’s me.”

“What’s up? You sound pretty terrible.”

“Gee, thanks, you sound like an angel yourself. But the point of this call isn’t to wax poetic about our sonorous voices. I have a problem.”

He let out a slow sigh. “And what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that twelve hours ago, I had my mouth wrapped around Russ’ cock.”

He paused. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no. You’ve got to be kidding—”

“And then shortly after that, he had his hand around mine.”

“Jesus, Devin—”

“It gets worse. A half hour later, I forced him to fucking sleep in bed next to me. I said I needed him there and whined and begged and made him be the big spoon.”

“Okay, okay! Too much information. Enough, enough, I get the picture,” Emmett said, laughing.

“This isn’t funny! I’m totally fucking fucked!”

“Well, you certainly were last night.”

“He was gone this morning. Sent me a text about going home and then said thanks for letting me stay with him. No mention of last night.”

“Shit. That’s not good.”

I groaned so loud I worried my neighbors were going to hear it. “What do I do, dude?”

“Apparently, you call your brother and describe to him the sordid details of your sex romp with your best friend.”

“Emmett. What would you do if you were me?”

He hummed. “Well,” he said, “I’m not the best person to ask for advice about this. But if I were you, I would do this crazy, weird, totally abnormal thing: I’d just talk to him about it. What’s the worst that can happen?”

I was silent.

“Dev?”

“The worst that can happen is that I just ruined a friendship I thought I’d never get back, all because I drank too much and danced like a fucking sex maniac and… and… oh, God, I have a huge crush on him, and I didn’t exactly hide it after I had a few drinks in me.”

“Okay,” Emmett said. “Okay. He seemed into it last night, right?”

“I mean… yeah, I think so, at least,” I said. “But he was drunk, too. And he’d been cancelled on by his date. Maybe I was just… there, and he responded because of my own overbearing enthusiasm.”

“In vino veritas, Devin. People are their true selves when they’re drunk. Maybe he’s into you, did you ever consider that?”

“Veritas, shmeritas. Haven’t you ever heard of something called beer goggles?”

“What, when you’re drunk and you’re more attracted to someone because of it?”

“Yeah, and you wake up the next day thinking oh my God, what the fuck did I do, and you flee the scene. Which is exactly what Russ did! He fled.”

“My idea remains the same. I would go talk to him. What do you have to lose?”

I sighed. “Only my best friend. That’s all.”

“Well, if this is really the thing that’s going to ruin your relationship, then it’s probably already ruined. Talking to him can’t hurt, it can only help.”

“That… makes me feel both awful, and weirdly hopeful,” I said.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Emmett said.

“Thanks. I have to go now. I’m gonna walk over to his place, I can’t have this hanging over my head all day.”

“What? No ‘how are you,’ no ‘what’s going on in your life, Emmett?’”

“I already know what’s going on in your life. Yesterday you went over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner, and they probably made you help set up something with their TV box or their internet that they couldn’t figure out. Then, you probably went home, watched Law & Order: SVU and fell asleep alone, wishing you had a cat or a significant other. You woke up this morning, probably thinking you’d make a smoothie but ended up getting an Egg McMuffin instead. …How did I do?”

He was silent for a second. “…Fuck you,” he said, and I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

“Tell me! How close was I?”

“…The TV show last night happened to be The X Files instead of Law & Order. And I did make myself a perfectly reasonable breakfast burrito this morning. But… you are painfully correct, otherwise.”

“There we go,” I said. “You know you’re fully welcome to call me with any calamities, looking for my advice, when you need to.”

“I know, I know. Okay. Go talk to Russ. If I don’t hear anything from you I’ll assume you two have fallen madly in love and eloped.”

“Not likely, but thanks. Love you, Emmett.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

I pulled in a deep breath.

I knew Emmett was right. I had to talk to Russ.

But I was so fucking scared to actually do it.

* * *

I paced nervously outside the front door, waiting for Russ to answer. I looked down at my nails, at the wood paneling of his deck, his lawn—anything but the door. I had showered, spent a stupid amount of time picking out clothes and then headed over to his place, carrying a cat toy he’d left at my house.

If all else failed, I could say that I was just coming over to return the cat toy.

The door swung open.

“Hi,” he said, his voice hoarse. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was ruffled and unkempt.

“Hi,” I said, glancing up at him. “Are… you okay?”

“I feel like garbage,” he said, stepping aside so that I could come in. “I don’t know if this is just a hangover, or if I’m actually coming down with something.”

“I’ll make sure not to share any drinks with you,” I said with a tight little laugh.

My cheeks heated as I said it. All it made me think of was how stupid it was to say you wouldn’t share drinks with someone you’d been making out with nonstop the night before.

“Hopefully, it is just the hangover,” he said, crossing back into the house.

“Your new bed came?” I asked, bending to put the cat toy down next to Pepper. She pounced on it immediately, curling her body around it like a little ball.

“It’s here,” he said. “Still has that weird, plasticky, new-bed smell, but it’s comfortable as all hell. You can try it out if you want.”

I met his eyes, and his cheeks flushed as red as I imagined mine were a moment ago.

Fuck. Was this going to be it, now? Was this how our friendship ended? A series of awkward pauses, punctuated by small talk, until one of us went insane?

I had to say something.

“Russ, um—last night—”

“You should have seen Pepper when the guys delivered the mattress,” he said, cutting me off. He continued on with his cute story about Pepper, but I was way too embarrassed to pay any attention.

He’d changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about it.

I guessed that I had my answer, then; it seemed quite clear that he wanted to forget about it, continue on with our lives the way everything had been going.

Deep down, I knew that I should have tried again. I should have taken the high road, brought it up and made him face the truth, even if it was going to hurt me.

But I couldn’t do it. Part of me—a big part of me—didn’t want to hear it, coming from him: We made a mistake. I knew it would hurt too much.

So I sucked it up and buried the feelings. Not talking about it was better than potentially hearing him say how much he regretted it.

After a few minutes of awkwardness, though, it was almost as if things had gone back to normal. He gave me one of the bagels that he’d picked up earlier that morning, and I stayed for a while, playing with Pepper while we chatted about some weird old mutual friends we’d had in college.

If it weren’t for the low-level memory of his skin against my skin, I would almost have been able to forget last night ever happened.

When one o’clock came around, I stood up from the couch, gently placing Pepper back down from where she’d been sitting on my lap.

“I’m gonna get going,” I said. “I, uh… I hope you feel better, though.”

“You could stay if you wanted to,” Russ said with a shrug. “I was planning on maybe trying out my new grill this afternoon, out back. I’ve got veggies and steaks.”

“Ah,” I said, scratching the back of my neck. “That sounds good, but I actually have plans to meet up with Angelo.”

Russ’ eyes met mine. “Oh. Okay. Some other time, then.”

“Yeah.”

Jesus, the awkwardness had returned. Everything had been going fine while we were talking, but for some reason saying goodbye was a mess.

“Alright, see you later,” I said, waving, barely making eye contact as I headed for his front door.

On my walk up to the studio in the Promenade, I could barely focus. I almost walked into traffic twice on accident and one time nearly collided head-on with a stroller.

I was completely airheaded the whole time that I was showing Angelo the copper etching process in the studio, as well. He was actually paying attention to the techniques and not just trying to ask me out on dates, which I appreciated. Because the last thing I needed at that moment was more confusion.

By the end of the session, I almost found myself enjoying speaking with Angelo.

I really was in bizarro world.

“This is incredible,” he said, holding up one of the finished copper plates we had treated with acid. “I thought it would be like glorified rubber stamp-cutting, but this is so intricate. It’s going to make for some beautiful prints.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I love intaglio printmaking. You can make some really fine artwork with it.”

“Have you done this a lot in the past?” he asked, walking over to the sink to clean off his hands.

“Not that much, to be honest,” I said. “I did some in college, but I’d really like to get back into doing it more for myself, instead of just teaching students.”

“You should,” he said, turning to look over his shoulder at me. “I know I lay it on pretty thick with you, but it’s true that I think your artwork is impressive.”

“You’ve seen my stuff?”

“Of course,” he said, drying off his hands and walking back over to me. “Remember? In class? You told us all your online portfolio address. I doubt I’m the only one who checked it out.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thank you. I… had no idea anyone had looked at my website in years, actually.”

“Do you ever try to sell art? Or do you just teach?”

I pulled in a long breath. “Just the teaching, recently. But I miss doing more of my own stuff. I am so exhausted at the end of the day, and I… I don’t prioritize it, I guess.”

“You should.” He smiled at me.

“Thank you.”

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I know it’s a little early, but would you join me for a drink and dinner?”

I was about to say no. My every instinct said “no,” and no part of me wanted to lead Angelo on into thinking I was at all interested in him.

But wouldn’t it be worse if I went home?

I’d go back to an empty house that now only felt doubly empty, now that Russ and Pepper were gone. I’d putter around and probably end up making some sort of sad frozen meal, and if I was lucky, maybe I could convince Meredith to come over for a glass of wine.

It was getting too cold out lately to even sit out on the back deck, so I’d be cooped up inside, cozy, with nobody to share it with.

So I caught myself right as my mouth was forming the word “no,” and I stopped. I set down the towel I was holding onto a workbench and met Angelo’s eyes.

“Sure,” I said. “Not as a date, but sure. I wouldn’t mind grabbing a drink and some food.”

He clapped his hands together once, beaming at me. “Wonderful. Let’s go.”

It was probably a mistake to go with him. But if the past twenty-four hours had shown me anything, it was that I was good at making mistakes.

* * *

The bar Angelo picked was a place I’d only been to once or twice, a trendy little place with plenty of pendant lights, dark wood tabletops, and cocktail names fancier than I could pronounce. He ordered for me, some complicated drink with liquors in it I’d never heard of, but it tasted so good I ordered a second one.

“I probably shouldn’t,” I said. “But it’s too damn good.”

“Why not?” he said, his face in that ever-present smile as he leaned back in his chair, gazing at me.

“I drank way too much last night. Like, college levels of alcohol. It was monstrously stupid of me.”

“That can be fun, every now and then. What was the occasion?”

“No occasion, really. Just a party a couple friends invited me to. I went with my best friend… well, my ex-best friend… uh, I don’t really know how to describe it.”

Angelo lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know if this guy is your best friend or your ex-best friend?”

“It’s complicated.”

Angelo bit his bottom lip, nodding slowly. “I’m gonna venture a guess that this was the guy who you brought to drawing class on Friday night? Real jocky guy, kinda looks like a pretty footballer?”

“How’d you know?” I said.

“Just the way your face looked when you brought up his name. Can tell you care about him a lot. And it was pretty obvious on Friday night in class, too.”

I swallowed another gulp of my cocktail. Shit. Had I really been that obvious?

“He and I grew up together, but I hadn’t heard from him in eight years until he moved back into town.”

“Is that the kind of guy you usually go for?” Angelo asked.

“What? No,” I said quickly. “I mean no, I don’t have some sort of fetish for athletes or anything. Russ is… different. Not that I’m attracted to him. He’s just my friend.”

“Sure,” Angelo said, clearly seeing right through my bullshit. “So, the guy comes back after eight years of no contact, and you pick up right where you’d left off?”

I glanced up at the ceiling, thinking. “Kind of, yeah.”

“And did he have some sort of explanation for why he never contacted you?”

“We’d gotten into a fight before he left, but I’d forgiven him many years ago.”

“Hm,” Angelo said, nodding. “So why’d he finally come back?”

I paused. I didn’t really have a great answer for him. Of course, Russ had said that he came back because he missed living in his hometown. It was a fair excuse, but the more I thought about it, the sillier it seemed.

There was no way the hospital here was paying him as much as one in a major city would pay him. Russ had to have taken a major pay cut to live in Rose Falls, even factoring in the lower cost of living.

So why had he come back, if not just for nostalgia?

“I don’t know why he finally moved back,” I said, realizing I’d left Angelo’s question hanging in the air.

Angelo puffed out a laugh, his eyes glinting at me. “Sure you don’t,” he said, raising an eyebrow again.

What was that supposed to mean?

Angelo turned the subject quickly to some gallerist he knew in New York City, and soon we headed out to go get dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. But for the rest of the night, his phrases hung in my mind.

“Sure you don’t.” What did Angelo mean by that?

Was he trying to say that Russ had moved back to Rose Falls… to see me again?

Quite frankly, it sounded fucking ridiculous. Who would go eight years without seeing someone, only to move back to their town just to be around them? If Russ had somehow wanted to talk to me that badly, he easily could have called, emailed, anything.

But he never had.

After I said goodbye to Angelo and returned back to my street, I paused for a moment on my front lawn. It was dark outside, and most of the leaves on the tree in front of Russ’ dining room window had now fallen off.

I glanced over. I could see Russ sitting at his dining room table, all on his own, eating. I turned away, heading into my house, not wanting to be caught strangely staring into someone’s house at night.

But my heart ached when I looked through his window.

Russ didn’t really have other friends who had remained in Rose Falls. In a way, I was the only person here he knew well at all. I couldn’t imagine that sort of profound loneliness—being new in town again, knowing someone, and potentially losing that friendship because of some dumb drunken night.

I couldn’t avoid him forever because of that. It wasn’t worth it. We would just have to get over the awkwardness.

I picked up my phone, hesitating over Russ’ contact information. After a solid twenty minutes of deliberation, I tapped out a text to him, hitting send.

>>DEVIN: So how about grilling later this week? You free Wednesday night?

I let out a sigh of relief as soon as the text had been sent. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed:

>>RUSS: Can’t. That’s when I rescheduled my date with Shane. Sorry.

>>DEVIN: Okay. How about another day?

A minute passed, then ten, then thirty. An hour later, my phone buzzed, but this time it was a call, not a text. Russ was on the other end.

“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Devin,” he said, his voice constricted. “I… didn’t know how to say this over text, and I couldn’t say it earlier, so I’m just going to tell you now. I think we should… take a little break from hanging out, after last night.”

“…Oh,” I said, stunned into silence.

“I know you probably thought it was nothing, and no big deal, but… it wasn’t just a small thing for me. And I wanted to tell you that I think we should give each other some space before we do anything else stupid.”

Stupid. The word rang in my ear. So there it was, how he really felt, what last night had really been to him. It was like a kick to the gut, and immediately I started to feel sick.

“Okay,” I said, unable to offer anything more than that.

“Thank you for understanding, Dev. We’ll hang out again, but I need some time.”

After we hung up, I sat staring at the wall, anxiety churning inside me.

I thought back over the past few weeks since Russ had been in town. I’d been the one to notice him the night he was moving in and offer to help him. Emmett had invited him to the fall festival. I had invited him to the drawing class and then the party last night.

…Maybe Russ didn’t come back to Rose Falls with any intentions of rekindling a friendship with me. Sure, he must have known he would run into me at some point—but maybe Angelo was wrong. Maybe Russ had been hanging out with me out of convenience, or worse because he felt like he had to.

Fuck, I hoped he didn’t do everything with me last night because he felt like he “had to.” He had seemed so into it, as much as I was, for sure, but I couldn’t know for certain.

All I knew without a shadow of a doubt was that Russ had just told me he wanted to hang out less.

And his wishes were something I would respect, no matter how much it felt like a punch in the gut.