Sean and Phoebe entertain themselves with a game of I Spy during the short drive to the park. Sabrina and Dave are waiting for us with little Viv in a complicated stroller-ish contraption when we arrive. Sean, Dave, and the kids go into the park to find a good spot, while Sabrina waits for the others with me closer to the parking lot.

I watch the two men walk away, admiring them from behind.

“Those are some fine men,” I say, and then turn to find Sabrina watching me intensely. “What?”

“How’re you doing?” she says. “You look sexy today.”

I glance down at what I finally settled on for the unseasonably warm day: a white tank, cute cuffed jeans, and a chunky gold necklace. Having pulled my long hair up into a very intentionally and artfully messy bun, I suddenly wonder if I look like I’ve tried way too hard—I knew the necklace was too much. Sabrina is wearing old cutoffs and a nursing shirt. “Did I try too hard? I always worry that I’ve forgotten how to dress myself.”

“Nervous?”

I shake my head. “Excited.”

“Me too. I’ve never met him.”

“I meant I’m excited for a day off, you little enabler. But since you mention it, you’ve never met Nikki or Danny, either,” I remind her.

Sabrina laughs, stepping closer so she can put her arm around my shoulders. “I know you’ve known them since grade school, but I think we both know who I’m most curious about.”

I glance behind us, to where Sean and Dave have disappeared from view. “Sean seems zero percent weird about the Elliot thing.”

“Isn’t that good?”

I shrug. “Sure. But I still feel guilty for how much I’m thinking about Elliot and the past, then when I talk to Sean about it, he’s like—‘It’s cool, babe, no big deal.’ But maybe it’s because I’m not being totally honest with him about how it feels to see Elliot? Though,” I add, thinking out loud, “Sean assumed right away that it was more than just catching up with an old friend when I brought it up, but it didn’t even really rankle him. Is that weird?”

Sabrina answers my babble with a helpless look. At least I’m not the only one who’s confused.

I groan. “I’m probably just overthinking it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.” I hear the twist in her voice, the complete lack of conviction, but I don’t have time to question it because I see Nikki and Danny walking down the path toward us. Taking off at a jog, I run to them, throwing my arms around Nikki first, and then Danny.

Although I’ve been back in the Bay Area for about six months, I haven’t seen them yet, and it’s wonderfully surreal to see how they’ve changed, and—even more so—how they haven’t. Nikki I met in the third grade when we were tablemates, and her parents clearly did a better job than most at coaching her through having a friend who lost her mom the following year, because while Nikki didn’t always know what to say, she never stopped trying, either. Danny moved to Berkeley from L.A. when we were in sixth grade, so he missed the worst of my heartbreak and subsequent social fumbles, but he’s always been on the low-drama, oblivious end of things anyway.