“I’m—thank you. Uh…today is not a good day. I’ll have some downtime soon,” I assured her politely. “In a few weeks.”

“Max said you’re hanging with us for a while,” she said. Max popped out of the kitchen, squeezed me from behind, and placed a wine glass in my hand. I nodded.

“Drink up, honey,” Max said, grabbing another bottle and walking toward the glass doors of the garden. “I think we should build a fire.”

Twenty minutes later we had a roaring flame going in the fire pit, and the three of us stood around it, watching the orange glow and shifting against the plumes of smoke in a little circular dance.

“Where’s Charlie?” I remembered to ask.

“The city,” they said in unison. Fleur’s face was blank while Max rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” Max said, blowing out a sigh. “He’ll be home this weekend. Until then: ladies, ladies, ladies.”

“I do have to go back to the studio,” I said. “I’m not done.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I mean…yes, but no? I don’t know. I’m in love with him,” I said, telling Max the truth for the first time in years. “I’m in love with him and he’s not in love with me. And he is so successful and it’s so easy for him. And he doesn’t—he doesn’t understand what it is for me to be, I don’t know, myself. He doesn’t understand how lonely it is.”

I wanted to say, Carey is between us. But I didn’t.

“I hate men,” Fleur said, nodding with understanding. “Like, I really hate men.” I appreciated her brevity.

“Yes.” I laughed. “I hate men too.”

“To hating men,” Max said, and we raised our glasses.

“What can you tell me about the book?” I asked. “I want to know everything.”

“Oh my God, it’s sooooo good,” Max said.

Fleur smiled bashfully. “Max has a lot to say about a specific time, so it’s easy to write,” she said. “I’m the coauthor. It’s her voice. It’s her everything.”

“But you make my voice sound not insane,” Max said. “Without you I’m basically some bananas magpie with a pile of photographs and a billion intersecting stories that read like the drunkest cocktail party of all time.”

“What’s your favorite part so far?” I asked.

“Uh—” They looked at each other in cahoots, with one of those secret friendship faces, and then back at me.

“We can’t say yet,” Max said excitedly. “But I’m dying for you to read it. DYING.”

“What’s your second favorite part?”

“It’s the part about you, actually,” Fleur said. “I realize that’s probably terrifying.”

“I hadn’t realized that I merited inclusion.” I was genuinely surprised.