By the time we got to Saba’s, I was questioning every decision of the last twenty-four hours. Right at the top of the list was packing holey jeans and a ten-year-old Cornell sweatshirt for my change of clothes. I looked like the token Latino frat bro at a kegger.

I tugged at the hem of my sweatshirt, utterly disgusted. “Why did I not bring something decent to wear?”

Saba looked up at me while opening a bottle of wine and smiled. “What are you so worried about? I thought you weren’t interested in this man.”

“Obviously I was lying, Saba!” I moaned, and flung myself on her couch. “You know I like him! Ugh, now you made me say it!”

She cackled and passed me a glass, patting me on the shoulder. I sipped morosely as I looked at the clock on the wall. Elias would be here any minute. I’d texted him instructions about thirty minutes ago, which was how long he said it would take him to drive over.

I heard a car pulling up to the gate of the house and saw Saba’s guard come out to open it. I quickly got up to look and saw Elias’s Corolla pull into the big gravel driveway. I went out to meet him while Saba sat on her couch, looking amused.

“Looks like your guest’s here.” She was having a little too much fun with this, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to come up with a snappy comeback. So I left my wine on her coffee table and went out to meet Elias.

He got out of the car with a bottle of wine in his hand, and once again took my breath away. This time he was wearing dark gray chinos and a bright red sweater, with a gray linen scarf around this neck. He looked like some sort of bohemian poet, and I wanted to kiss him so badly.

He walked up to the porch where I stood waiting for him, and we pressed our shoulders together in greeting. He pulled back and peered inside, but his expression changed to one of surprise when he saw Saba through the window. After a second, he shook himself and passed me the wine, eyes almost bulging out of his head. “You didn’t say your friend was Saba Aklilu!”

I looked over my shoulder, confused by how freaked out he sounded, but found Saba placidly sipping wine and doing something on her phone. “Oh, I guess I didn’t, but yes, that’s her. Do you know her?”