“I know.” Kira sighed. “I get that now. I mean, I try to get that. It’s going to be a while before I stop thinking of her job as something she’s just doing until she finds a real career. But I’m trying, and I think Alexa understands that.”

“You’re lucky she kept you around after that. Alexa used to consider it an instant deal breaker if someone wasn’t okay with her job.”

“I’m not not okay with it,” Kira clarified. “I just . . . like, I know she’s bi, and I swear I’m cool with that, but as the resident lesbian of the group, it doesn’t make sense to me that anyone would voluntarily spend all day verbally jacking off dirty old men.” Kira shuddered. “Gross.”

“Hey, they’re not all dirty old men,” Zack said. “John is living proof of that. And I’m not interested in women, but I still understand why you and Alexa are together. Different strokes and all that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. The whole discussion made me feel horrible—mostly because I deserved to; I was being an ass—and then I felt even more horrible for making Alexa feel horrible, even if she didn’t say anything. It was like this inescapable negative feedback loop, and I would love to just get rid of this jealousy, but I can’t.”

“Give it some time, and I’m sure you’ll get used to the idea. Or hey, maybe one day you and Alexa will be hired to be the poster children for world peace. I mean, you’re a couple of attractive queer girls, and you’re an interracial couple.”

Kira tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it, our group all together checks a lot of boxes. A black lesbian, a gay man, an alternative bisexual, and then the token straight guy.”

“Who also happens to be Vietnamese,” Zack added.

“Precisely. I bet there are some politicians out there who would pay us just to be photographed in our presence. We’re a PC dream.”

Zack was still sniggering when the door to the bar opened and Lee appeared. He made a quick stop at the bar to order a beer and then snaked his way through the crowd to their table. When he arrived, his cheeks were flushed—scrubbed pink by the wind—and his silky black hair was in disarray.

“Hey,” Zack greeted him, standing so he could grab a nearby chair and add it to their small table.

Lee accepted it gratefully. “Hey. What’d I miss?”

“Nothing much,” Kira said. “We were just discussing the finer details of our future campaign to be the faces of World Peace.”

“Ah,” Lee said. “And by ‘we’ I assume you mean you signed me up for this as well?”

“But of course.”

He nodded in a resigned way. “I saw that coming.”