“Oh,” she said softly, and he could sense the pleasure there. There were people talking in the background, and he guessed that she was at a bar or restaurant. “Wanna come tell me the good news in person? I’m out with Beth Herari. Richie’s here too, actually. That wasn’t planned, though.”

“At Fellow’s?”

“Yup.”

Of course Mary would be at John’s regular watering hole, rubbing elbows with John’s world. Of course, after half a season of being intertwined in his life, she was threaded through almost every single aspect of it.

He laughed. “I’ll be there in five.”

John’s spirit was on roller skates as he strode down the long city blocks that divided Brooklyn Heights from Fort Greene, deftly sidestepping shoppers who were cruising the Fulton Mall, mostly, he figured, for the free air-conditioning. It was August and the city was doing that charming thing it did midsummer, where it became the mouth of hell, each building absorbing the heat of the sun and spitting it back onto the population for hours after sunset.

But John didn’t care. He was buoyant. He was a human glass of champagne. He was a fresh start and a fresh breeze, and he was on his way to meet Mary Trace in a bar.

“Hey, John!” someone called to him when he stepped through the door at Fellow’s. He waved but didn’t stop, scanning the area for a bright, sunny head of hair. He spotted Richie, leaning too far over the bar to hear something Marissa was saying, and then there was Mary. Laughing hard at a story Beth was telling, her hair lit up like a beacon and her dress falling off one shoulder.

The bar was crowded for a Wednesday. He shouldered his way through his colleagues, his eyes on Mary.

She looked up, as if his gaze had called to her, and her smile fell away. She looked elated to see him, but there was more to this expression. She looked as charged as he felt. As if seeing him cross a bar on a single-minded mission was really doing it for her. John would have done this same strutting, striding walk for hours if it really was all it took to put that look on her face. Her hair fell over one eye; her teeth caught at her bottom lip.

John was twenty feet away, ten, five, one. He stepped around Beth and into Mary’s side. She twisted on the barstool to face him as one of John’s hands went around to her lower back. His other hand slid up to her cheek, her chin resting on the pad of his thumb. Her eyes swallowed him alive as, stars in his bloodstream, John leaned forward and planted a good, hard kiss on her cheek.