“Tram Fam is on the move,” Tobias says into a fake headset.

We remain crowded around Elise all the way to the front door, like a pack of security guards protecting a Kardashian. When we get inside, Gabe’s house is exactly as I expected it to be. Cement and paint splattered work boots are discarded in the mud room. The sound of television sports emanates from the back of the house, the furniture is beat up, functional brown leather. It smells like a combination of microwave meals and aftershave, the latter of which is so fresh, he must have splashed it on right before he got here.

Fair enough. I reapplied deodorant while speeding over the Queensboro Bridge.

I’m sure Tobias checked his hair eighty times in the rearview.

We’re all fucked for this girl.

“Gabe…” She bestows an incredible smile on him. “I love your house.”

“Move in,” he blurts, his face immediately turning the color of a stoplight.

She laughs and my reaction to her amusement is like having the wind knocked out of me. I forget how to breathe for a second. I’ve been hit with her being in danger and that laugh, all in the space of a couple of hours, and it’s leaving me unbalanced.

In need of her balance.

I swallow a croak of her name.

But it’s almost like she hears it anyway, her eyes tripping over to me. “I want to explain now. I just need to get it out, okay?”

Tobias sits down on the couch and pats his knee for Elise to sit, but she shakes her head.

He frowns and falls back into the cushions.

“You three remember that morning you showed up at my place of work to see me again, a totally inappropriate thing to do?”

A chorus of hums from us men. Gabe hangs his head until Tobias kicks him, gesturing for him to stop slouching. What are we becoming?

“Well. That morning, I told you I was following a story about Gabe’s union boss, Jameson Crouch, right?” We all seem to watch with rapt attention as her throat moves in a swallow. “He’s in a feud with the mayor. You’ve all seen it in the paper, right? On the news…” She tucks some hair behind one ear and my fingers flex in response. “Well, I started to notice that the accusations against the mayor were so specific. I wanted to prove myself to Karina, so I…I pursued my hunch that there was a mole feeding Crouch information. I started with Deputy Mayor Alexander and it turned out to be the right lead. I followed him to a meeting with Crouch that evening on Roosevelt Island.” She looks at me, wetting her lips. “Banks, when you asked me if I’d dropped the story, I should have told you this part. At the Local 401 party, I overheard them making plans about leaking those emails about the governor.” Heavy seconds go by. “And I took a picture of them speaking, exchanging a thumb drive. A picture that is now missing from my apartment, but still on my phone. They might have been looking for my laptop, maybe to see what I knew? But I brought it with me to the rugby game. I have it with me now.”