Brian comes back from the restroom and wastes no time asking me for a favor.

“How about a quick selfie?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I just got the new iPhone. The camera is supposed to be bomb. Give portrait mode a try with me?”

I crinkle my forehead yet again as I contemplate the ask. Before I can protest, he pulls me into the crook of his arm and I give in. What’s the harm in helping him test his camera? I tilt my head toward his. He softly places his hand around my shoulders and says “Smile” before snapping a few shots in quick succession.

Chapter 13

The Dodgers lose four to two, which is exactly the ratio of beers I’ve had compared to Brian.

For the last few hours, the biggest problem on my mind has been how I’m going to get the nacho cheese stain out of my ripped denim shorts, not what I was going to do with my husband’s ashes. Even though I barely paid attention to the game, I still call that mini break a “win for the home team.”

While we wait at the valet stand for the Tesla to loop around, a gaggle of drunken college bros passes us singing the lyrics to “Closing Time,” a security guard ushering them to stop loitering and leave the stadium.

“You don’t have to go hoooome,” they chant. “Sing it!” They point to us to finish the line.

“But you can’t stay heeeere,” we sing, laughing as the bros turn around and fist-bump us.

“I had a good time with you at the game,” Brian says, looking at me with his cocoa-brown eyes. They get bigger by the millisecond, like flowers blooming on time lapse. “It was fun to hang out. I’m glad we’re...good.”

“I agree,” I say, content enough with “good.” It’s neutral, it’s friendly, it’s exactly where we should be.

“We should hang out like this more. You know, not just wait for years to go by before we run into each other at Whole Foods again.”

I think he wants me to say “I agree” again, but “I don’t know” is probably a more appropriate response.

Just then, I hear my phone ding four times in a row and my Apple Watch lights up erratically. I take out my phone, if only to silence it, but the SOS texts from one of the TIF interns are poking through one after the next like the creatures in a game of Whac-A-Mole.

Back flat on my feet, I read the texts and learn that an invitation list for a museum event that I prepped before my forced PTO has apparently been swapped with that of a liquor tasting event, and so now the demographic of tonight’s Calder expose is skewing on the younger, more thirsty side, while the folks at the bar are wondering where all the expensive art is.

“Oh, shit,” I say. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Brian asks.

I ignore him as I go on to read more of the damning messages.