Soon, the sun is completely down, and soon after, the party begins to filter away. Holly says, “You two wanna come back to my place? Olive could come too, if she wants.” Ava pulls out her phone, and Gemma goes to the bathroom, where she finds and drains an abandoned glass of white.

They go down to Holly’s floor, but when they get off the elevator, Gemma doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going. She thought she was following the other two, but then suddenly, she finds herself facing a fire exit.

The red letters glowing under the bleary fluorescent light.

She takes a few steps back. Her boots are soundless on the carpeted floor.

Then Ava’s behind her. She grabs Gemma’s wrist. “Come on, you got lost!” Ava sounds impatient and happy at the same time. She pulls Gemma back down the hallway to Holly’s place. Inside, Holly is slamming cabinets. “Do you want wine? I’ve got wine.” Holly’s shades are up, and the windows face south and are filled with dark and stars.

Gemma and Ava curl against each other on a couch, and Holly begins to spill about a boy back home in St. Vital. A boy who visits her plenty but just has so many fucking feelings! Gemma’s thoughts begin to run just a little behind what Holly is saying. (That abandoned glass of white had been a choice.) But eventually, she says to Holly, “He’s not an egg, is he?”

Ava laughs. “No. I mean, who knows? But he says he’s not a lady!”

Holly cackles. “Oh buddy, she checked.”

A cat noses around Gemma’s legs. “Kitty!”

“That’s Cinnamon Bun,” says Ava. “She’s cute, hey?”

Gemma scratches the cat’s chin. “She is. Oh my God!” she blurts. “You should get a cat!”

She can hear the intimacy in her own voice as she says this, and it feels embarrassing in some way. But Ava just shakes her head. “I wish,” Ava says. “But Olive won’t hear of it.”

Holly drops bags of crackers and chips on the table. Gemma remembers they were talking about Holly’s boy. “So this boy,” she says.

“This fuckin’ boy,” says Holly. She collapses on the opposite couch. “The real thing that bothers me?” She reaches for her wine. “It’s embarrassing …”

“Embarrassing’s great!” says Gemma. Ava titters.

“Okay, okay. I don’t mind him being emotional or whatever, and I don’t even mind that I live far away.” Holly turns red. “But for all his feelings and shit, like … he won’t call me his partner! He says he doesn’t want to put ‘labels’ on things. It’s so stupid to get hung up on! But I … ”

“I don’t like him,” Ava says to Gemma brusquely.

“I know you don’t,” says Holly. “I get it.”

“Holly,” Ava leans forward. “It isn’t stupid. Labels aren’t stupider than anything else. If he doesn’t want to call your relationship that, that’s fine for him. But he has emotions about it, just like you. It’s not as if you’re being emotional and he’s not, you know?”