“I will,” he promised, pocketing his phone and turning back to the Earth Goddess. We soaked in the beauty for a couple more minutes before deciding to move on, walking down toward the azalea walk, which had one of the most stunning blown-glass sculptures I’d ever seen. It rose up at least twenty feet into the air, made of sunny yellow spikes that grew out of an ocean-blue center. It almost seemed like a real plant, belonging somewhere on an alien planet.

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Noah said, craning his head and shielding his eyes from the sun so he could see the entirety of the towering structure. “How can anyone make that?”

“Lots of dedication and lung strength,” I said. “I took a glass-blowing course in college, actually. Thought it would be an easy A. Turned out to be the one class I almost failed.”

Noah chuckled at that. He shook his empty coffee cup, the ice clanking around inside. “Where did you go to college?” he asked.

“University of Miami. It was close enough to home but far enough for me to be able to stretch my wings and figure things out on my own. It helped that I had a full-ride scholarship.”

Noah nodded, impressed. “Yeah, I crossed that one off my list because of the tuition. And my grades weren’t anywhere near good enough to get a scholarship.”

“Where’d you go?” I asked.

“Stayed local. I went to the University of Georgia over in Athens. It was a good time, and I went with Eric and Tristan, so it felt like home from the start.”

I smiled at that, happy his experience was so positive. “Eric and Tristan seem like really good guys.”

“They are. They really, really are. Both of them have hearts of gold, and all three of us have each other’s backs until the end. They’re like my brothers at this point. How about you? What’s your friend group like?”

I pursed my lips, shoulders dropping a bit. “Well, most of my closest friends were from UM, and we all kind of dispersed after college. When I moved back to Atlanta, I started dating, and my friends were mostly my partner’s friends, which never really works out after a split. My closest friend here, oddly enough, is probably Ashley, my ex-girlfriend. I turned into her gay guru after she came out to me seconds after I proposed to her. It wasn’t great, but it’s exactly what needed to happen. I was feeling pressure to pop a question I really didn’t want to ask and she was being pressured into staying with me.

After that day, we worked things out. I think I feel closer to her now than when we were dating. Is that weird?”