It was like magic.

Michael decided that very morning he would go to New Orleans and by evening he was there.

Although he’d grown up with the Internet in the house, sometimes it still amazed him how quickly things could happen. It really was magical, in a way. He made a wish—I want to go see Nora—and ten hours later, the technology gods had answered it.

He’d thought about surprising Nora, but he hated surprises himself and wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy, much less the person he trusted more than anyone else in the world, Griffin excepted. Nora would have probably enjoyed the surprise but one never knew what she was up to these days. She could have been in France with her new “Le Boy Toy,” as Griffin called Nora’s Nico. Michael would have felt like an idiot if he’d showed up on her doorstep only to find she wouldn’t be back for weeks.

But she was home. He’d texted her that morning asking if he could come for a quick visit. Yorke’s fall break was the third week of October every year. He wanted to spend his long weekend with Griffin but plans changed. Griffin had to fly off to L.A. to deal with some staffing issues at the YMKA—The Young Masters Kink Association—so named because of the old YMCA building that Griffin had taken over. Might as well stay on brand (plus it was cheaper if they only had to change one letter on the exterior). Michael didn’t want to go to L.A. if Griffin had to work the whole time. He’d decided he’d stay home at the apartment and do nothing but sleep and read and catch up on his painting.

All rest. No stress.

Then Griffin had to go and be Griffin, and there went that idea.

Michael hadn’t slept a wink last night. He probably wouldn’t tonight either, but at least he could blame that on his usual trouble with sleeping in new places instead of the real problem, which was he had a big decision to make and he didn’t have any idea how to make it.

He wandered through Louis Armstrong International Airport with his blue backpack slung over his shoulder, the only luggage he’d brought. He could feel the steam in the air already, the humidity even though it was October. Nora had warned him October in New Orleans could sometimes feel like July in New York. Michael didn’t mind. It had turned chilly in the city faster than he’d been expecting. A few more days of summer, even misplaced in the calendar, might do him some good.

As he walked to the exit, a girl in a green and gold Cabrini High School t-shirt sitting on a bench looked up from her phone. They made eye contact, as people in airports do, and she smiled flirtatiously at him. She was pretty, with dark brown skin and bright brown eyes. She looked about seventeen or eighteen—definitely a senior. If he’d asked her to grab a coffee with him in the airport, she would probably say yes, and when she found out he was twenty and a senior in college, she’d maybe shrug, if that. He was young enough to date a girl still in high school if he wanted.

Crazy, right?

Crazy.

Michael flashed the girl his usual awkward smile and kept walking, head down and earbuds in playing Paramore’s newest album. Griffin had tried breaking him of the habit of slouching in public—You’re my sexual property, sub. Hold your head up high. Griffin’s version of a pep talk. And while it never failed to make Michael smile, it didn’t quite cure his social anxiety in crowds and around strangers. Luckily, he wouldn’t be all on his own in a strange city this weekend. It was just him and Nora, maybe Father S. Maybe he’d see Kingsley and Juliette and Céleste, too. People he knew. People he could relax around. If he could relax. He wasn’t hoping for miracles, just distractions. Nora was always good for that.

Outside the airport exit he paused, glanced left and right looking for Nora’s little silver BMW. When he didn’t see it, he pulled his phone from his pocket and checked for messages warning him she might be late. Just as he glanced down at his phone, he heard a piercing wolf whistle.

Michael stepped to the curb just as a convertible pulled up in the pick-up lane right in front of him. A sleek red Mustang convertible, top down. Behind the wheel sat a black-haired, green-eyed, supposedly grown woman wearing a New Orleans Saints football jersey and cut-off denim shorts.

At the sight of her, Michael smiled for the first time in about twenty-four hours.

“You’re a football fan now?” he asked. They knew each other too well to bother with hellos and how-are-yous.

“Gift from a client,” Nora said. “He plays for the Saints. I like to torture him by complimenting him on how many ‘home runs’ his team scored.”

“You’re such a sadist.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” she said with a grin. “Hop in, gorgeous. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Want beignets?”

“What are beignets?”

“Imagine a ball of powdered sugar, fat, and joy.”

“I’m in.” Michael threw his bag into the tiny back seat and slid into the passenger seat.

“You won’t regret it, kid,” she said, turning her head to grin at him before putting her eyes back on the road where they belonged. She hit the gas and in minutes they were out on the main road, the airport receding behind them.

“Where’s the BMW?” Michael asked. He remembered that car well. Nora had let him drive it home from church one day a few years ago. Now that he thought about it, that little trip marked the beginning of his new life. It was the first time he’d ever heard the name Griffin.

“Traded it in last year,” Nora said. “It’s almost never cold here. If it’s going to be seventy in December, I’m going to have a convertible.”

It was so warm out he’d already forgotten it was late October. There was a texture to the air, a thickness, and a rich scent like food and sweat and seawater. He relaxed in the heat as the wind tickled his face and sent his hair and Nora’s dancing.

“It’s nice,” Michael said.

“Blondie said it was too ‘flashy.’ I told him that was pretty rich coming from a Jesuit priest who drives a black Ducati motorcycle.”

Out of loyalty to Father S, Michael wanted to take his side but Nora had a point there.

“Plus, this is a Mustang,” she said. “Classic American heavy metal. Not much of a back seat but I can fit a linebacker in my trunk.”

“You haven’t actually done that, right?” Michael asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

“Top secret,” she said. “That’s for me to know and the inevitable FBI investigation to find out.”

Nora winked at him and Michael rolled his eyes and laughed.

“How’s Father S?” Michael asked.

“Happy,” Nora said. “Which makes me happy. Because when he’s happy he’s horny.”

“Is he not usually happy?” Michael asked. He wasn’t going to ask about the horny part of the equation.

“He’s better at contentment than happiness, but down here, he’s been really good. He’s got me close by, King close by. He loves the college professor life, loves his students, loves the city. So do I. New Orleans is the perfect place to be a writer. It’s beautiful and wild and old. And it’s so hot all I want to do most of the time is stay indoors in my air-conditioned office.”

“Very cool,” Michael said. He could tell Nora was content. Unlike Father S, she was always good at being happy and terrible at being contented. Maybe finally having Nico, a sub of her own, with Father S as her dominant did the trick. Michael was glad he was just a sub and not a switch. Being a switch sounded complicated.

“He told me to tell you he would have come with me to pick you up, but he’s booked tonight,” Nora said. “One of his students is a choral singer, practicing for a recital this week. Søren’s his accompanist.”

“That’s nice of Father S.”

“Any excuse to play. But you’ll see him tomorrow at breakfast. He was glad to hear you were finally coming down to visit us.”

“I’m glad, too,” Michael said. He was. He would rest here. He would have fun. He would be distracted from the looming decision he had to make. He wouldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t think about it. Not tonight, anyway.

“So, Angel,” Nora said as she steered them off the interstate and onto a road with the improbable name of Elysian Fields Avenue, “tell me what brings you to my neck of the woods.”

Michael answered before he could stop himself, and it was all Nora’s fault for phrasing the question as an order. He never could disobey an order.

“Griffin asked me to marry him.”

It turned out the Mustang didn’t just have a big trunk. It had very good brakes as well.