Good, I thought as Noah described his favorite dish (a double-decker cheeseburger from a nearby diner). I shouldn’t be flirting so much with my coworker. We’re just friends. Let me not mess anything up.

“You’ve got my mouth watering,” I said.

“We should grab some food there sometime. After you cook me some of that ropa vieja.”

I smiled at Noah’s butchered attempt at speaking Spanish.

“I don’t think I can make it as good as my grandma used to, but I’ll try.” I pressed the wine opener to the top of the bottle and pushed the button, the whirr of the machine filling the kitchen, followed by the pop of the cork as it was lifted off. The glug-glug of wine being poured came next as I filled two glasses up to the brim.

“You’ve got a heavy hand, there,” Noah said, smiling and mouthing a “thank you” as I handed him his glass.

“I think we’ve earned this after today.”

“I agree.” He delicately brought the glass up to his lips and sipped, some of it dripping down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand, lips glistening. I swallowed, looking away, focusing instead on recorking the wine bottle and placing it back in the fridge.

Just friends. Just friends.

We left the kitchen with our wineglasses in hand, moving to the living room, where we sat on opposite ends of the couch. I put down two coasters—one from a trip to London and another from a trip to Austin—and settled in, the soft, plush leather feeling like a cloud against my back. Noah sat with his legs underneath him, hands on his knees, smile on his face. I noticed that he was the kind of guy with a perma-grin, which was the complete opposite of my sometimes severe resting bitch face.

“So where are you from, Noah?” I asked, avoiding the hypnotizing effects of his toothy smile. If we were going to keep this friend thing going, then it was important to know a little more about each other. Book club may have been over, but I was still excited to read up on Noah’s history, flicking through the chapters and figuring out what made this golden retriever of a man tick.

“I was born in North Carolina, in a small town about an hour from Asheville. My parents own a dairy farm. They wanted me to stay and take over the reins, but I’m really not about that life. I wanted to work indoors, with air-conditioning, and I also wanted to live in a city that had more than four gay people in it. Hence, Atlanta.”

“When did you come out?” I asked, reaching for my glass, giving it a swirl, and drinking.