As I move on to look through his photos, I discover a gradual transition from his spiky-haired frat boy days. Even though he was already graduated, I remember a version of Brian Jackson who was still fond of beer bongs and layering pastel-colored polo shirts. One who couldn’t say “Go Trojans!” without making a condom joke. But each passing picture shows a more polished version of him. He’s a doctor now—a children’s doctor. There’s a photo of him crossing the stage at graduation, a photo of him dressed up as Superman standing next to his patient—an adorable Clark Kent, mind you—on Halloween, a photo of him with an X-ray of a broken arm, and so on and so forth. I have to admit I didn’t really peg him as a guy who would be responsible enough to be in charge of kids’ health, but good for him for growing up. Consider me officially impressed.

“Howdy, howdy,” he says, forcing me to snap out of my digital stalking spree.

“Morning,” I say in the most casual, I-wasn’t-just-looking-at-every-single-Facebook-photo-of-you kind of way.

“Got to love Alfred’s: where the lattes are overpriced by about a dollar per ounce and there’s always a chance you’ll see Leonardo DiCaprio playing cat’s cradle with Jonah Hill on the back patio,” Brian says, doctoring up his drink with a packet of Sugar in the Raw and a healthy dose of creamer. I think he’s being facetious about the celebs, but I do afford myself a three-sixty-degree stretch in the event we might have an actual sighting.

“Thanks again for texting me,” he says, reminding me why I invited him in the first place. I dig into my Birkin and put the urn on the table like it’s a centerpiece.

“Ta-da.”

“Oh, hey there, buddy,” he says. I want to judge him for talking to an inanimate object, but realize it was only a few nights ago I found myself doing the same thing.

“So why are you here? Don’t you have to be at work?”

“No...” I say, struggling to figure out what should come next.

“Oh, no. You didn’t get fired?” He whispers that last word like my parents are at the table next to us.

“No, I did not get fired, thankyouverymuch. But I did get put on a forced leave, whatever that means.”

“I think it means free vacation. What happened?” Brian asks as he lifts his circular black Ray-Ban sunglasses to the top of his head, pulling back his thick brown hair.

“Well, you know I had a big client dinner last night. There was a snafu and I got put on some sort of a paid leave.”

“Tell me more about this snafu.” Brian swirls his drink with a stirrer. The way he casually invites me to go on makes it seem like I was telling him about a bad haircut I just got or some great poke bowl I had for lunch—like I actually started this conversation.

Ordinarily, I would never repeat what happened at BOA. How could anyone understand or even believe something so ridiculous could happen? But Brian actually knows about my past, so I don’t have to catch him up or censor myself.