“This place is so fucking cool,” I said. I proceeded to list off the virtues of the furniture, the decorations, the location, the music, the mirror by the front door, the appropriateness and good taste she had, her outfit.

“I feel like this is a good place to put down some roots,” she said, deflecting my compliments. “I love it out here. It finally feels like I have a home.”

“Do you own this place?”

“Rachel and I co-own it. Ambrose said it was like a ‘Boston marriage’ kind of situation. We’re just best friends who are like, soulmates.”

“That’s beautiful,” I said sincerely. “I haven’t seen you for a fucking year,” I added.

“We have to catch up some time,” she agreed, then she tapped me on my shoulder and darted off.

Ambrose finally caught up to me with a glass of wine.

“This place is like, so nice,” he said.

“An actual glass for wine at a house party,” I agreed. I inclined my head to the back door and he nodded. I fished in the pockets of my pants and found my little weed pen. The Adderall was hitting a little too hard; I had been more manic than I had intended with Yvette. I needed to cool off.

It was raining a little, but there was an ample awning over the door to the backyard. To my mild surprise, there were two trans girls out there smoking cigarettes. Ambrose seemed to know them.

“Wow, all the trans people are all outside to smoke, how original,” one of them said.

“This is just like Metro,” the other said.

I tried to recognize them as transmuted versions of guys I knew from college. They were both super early in transition, like less than a year probably, and dressed in a way that they probably thought was “dykey” but was really just unflattering and semi-closeted. Whenever I saw girls like that I wanted to take them downtown and force them to max out their credit cards. There’s only so much you can do with clothes and hair and makeup, but some people aren’t even trying.

“Veronica, you know Tristan and Esmé,” Ambrose said.

I did, I remembered now. Huh, wouldn’t have guessed. “Hi,” I said. “You both look great.”

“I love your outfit,” Tristan cooed. She was looking at me like she wanted to eat me.

“Thanks,” I said. I heard my voice come out crisp and neat on the syllable. I took a big rip from my weed pen.

“Can I have a hit of that?” Esmé said.

“Sure.” I handed it to her.

“Okay, me next, and then I have to go inside,” Ambrose said. He hadn’t brought his jacket. “I’m freezing.”

Esmé took two indulgently lengthy pulls on the pen and then handed it to Ambrose, who took a dainty little sip and then handed it to Tristan.