“That’s amazing. Good for you.”

“Thanks.” Was it too impolite to leave yet? “I heard you were, uh…” Frazer had heard nothing. Just as she preferred. “Are you still at the eastern suburbs hospital?”

Naomi nodded. “Yeah, I am, with Bee.”

How nice. They were still together. “That’s great.”

They stood for a minute, in the type of awkward silence that always feels heavy. Naomi shifted from foot to foot. Maybe she had finally realised that this was a weird situation and that it would’ve been better to just pretend she hadn’t seen Frazer.

“Great.” Frazer said. “Well, it was great seeing you. Be well.”

Be well?

And then, still dragging Cora, Frazer left the bar, only satisfied when the door swung shut behind them.

Once she was finally outside, Frazer dropped Cora’s hand when it struck her that she hadn’t yet done so. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment. She’d been so anxious in that situation that she’d clung to a friend’s hand. How adolescent.

The air was cool, the twilight a milky blue. Everything smelt crisp and clean, cyclists and joggers whirring their way along the river. Frazer’s fingers felt clammy as a breeze played around them.

She grinned at Cora. The action hurt only a little. “So—different bar?”

Cora shook her head, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t think you’re getting away with not explaining whatever that was.”

Shoulders sagging, Frazer dialled her grin down to normal. “Didn’t think you’d let me.”

“Old midwife rival? High school fight that you never got over?” Cora pursed her lips as she thought. “Ah, I know. She cursed you when you were a child, and that’s why you’re so sarcastic and brittle: you’re hiding the fact that you’re really nine hundred years old?”

Frazer could swear she heard crickets chirp as she stared at Cora. “What?”

With a shrug, Cora said, “I don’t know. I’m really bad at guessing.”

Now Frazer could say she was genuinely smiling. Unlike the one before, at least this one wouldn’t scare small children. She really would have to say something about what just happened. “That was the ex.”

“Oh.” An expression Frazer didn’t recognise flitted across Cora’s features. “Well, I was way off.” A beat of silence. “She was so important she got a definite article before ‘ex’?”

A chuckle bubbled out of Frazer’s chest. “We all have one of those, don’t we?”

“I don’t.”

“Seriously?” Frazer grimaced. “Way to make me feel inferior.”

They started to walk, the river on their right, fingers buried in their pockets to ward off the chill.

“I wouldn’t feel inferior. I think most of you mere mortals have ‘the ex,’” Cora said, her voice low.

The breeze was brisk as it blew over the water, now deeply black in the fading light. Streetlights switched on, and the distant sound of traffic and the thudding of joggers’ feet joined the lapping of the river against the bank.

Frazer pressed her hands deeper in her pockets. She nudged Cora with her shoulder. “Mere mortals?”