“Is that all?” he turns to ask me.

“Um, no. I’d like a single cup of Rocky Road and…” I run my hand over my head in a bit of a panic before I remember that Nate — unlike Danny but very much like me — is a creature of habit. “A single cone of double chocolate chip with sprinkles.”

“You got it.”

We choose a table closest to the ball pit, and I hold up Nate’s cone, turned upside down in a small cup for him to see, but he doesn’t rush to our table. He’s too excited to be playing with his new friends. Watching him makes me think that maybe we should be encouraging the boys to be less attached at the hip. Not much, but one activity a week they don’t do together might do them some good.

I don’t want to forget this, so I pull my phone from my pants pocket and jot it down in the notes file Nadia and I share, so we can chat about it later.

I see that Nadia added a new item to our list just a few minutes earlier. One word: Jourdan.

“I’m sorry,” I say as soon as I look up and meet her gaze.

“No, I’m sorry,” she says.

I shake my head and furrow my eyebrows. “Why are you sorry? I fucked up.”

“So did I. Multiple people can fuck up at once. Life is very messy.”

I’m rubbing my hands up and down my thighs. I’m nervous. Terrified of saying the wrong thing. “I wasn’t trying to like lock you down or anything; I just wanted you to be…safe.” I’ve whittled this down to the shortest, clearest sentence possible over the past few weeks on the off chance that I had the opportunity to explain myself.

“Yeah,” she says. “I realized that the next day. I’m stubborn, though. And a little bit impulsive. You probably can’t relate.”

I have to laugh. “I have anxiety,” I say. “I take meds. They’re great. But when I was in high school, I would swing wildly between freaking out about…” I shrug, “everything and doing nothing or freaking out about everything and doing the first ridiculous thing that came to mind. It was terrible, and I wouldn’t relive my teenage years if you paid me.”

Jourdan’s hands circle the cup of her mint chocolate chip milkshake with whip cream and three maraschino cherries. “I can’t afford a car note,” she says. “I’m saving to buy something cheap outright, but I’ve got student loans up to my ears. I can afford a monthly bus pass and the occasional zip car rental. I was embarrassed to tell you that.”

“Why?” I breathe.