The truth is, I have no idea whether Kiara and Val are home or not. Knowing how late they went to sleep last night after playing Baldur’s Gate 3, I’m pretty certain they are, though.

Celeste bites her lip. “If you’re sure. Thank you. I appreciate it.”

When we step outside the coffeehouse, it’s raining so consistently that it feels like there wasn’t a time when it didn’t rain.

My umbrella is small, really only meant to be used by one person. We’ll have to link arms and squeeze closer together to both fit underneath. I open it and extend my arm out to her as casually as I can.

“Here,” I say.

I hold my breath as she wordlessly loops her arm around mine.

At first, Celeste does her best to walk beside me, but that proves to be difficult since she’s almost a head taller than me. We don’t last more than a block before she has to take the umbrella from me and hold it for us instead. It’s uncomfortable at first, but once we find a good way to position ourselves, it’s admittedly cozy and nice, a little refuge while we walk through the cold, rainy city streets.

I hadn’t accounted for how just the warmth of her body pressed against mine would make my heart race. I swallow and do my best to avoid eye contact, even as my body heats up next to hers.

“Do you remember that one time it rained really hard in LA?” Celeste asks suddenly. “It’s one of the few times I remember it raining substantially while we were there for college.”

“Are you talking about the time during our junior year when the entire campus was almost empty, and some professors even canceled class?”

“Yes!” Celeste laughs. “After growing up in Korea, which has a whole monsoon season, I couldn’t believe my ears when my professor said we should cancel class for the day because of ‘rain and traffic.’”

I groan. “Oh yeah, you got to return home right away. I remember that. Meanwhile my professor stubbornly made us stay for a whole forty-five minutes and only gave up after he realized that more than half the class wasn’t going to show up.”

“We had fun after, though, right?” Celeste asks. “Since I made us Shin Black Ramyun, and we spent the entire rest of the day binge-watching a K-drama together.”

A faint smile plays on her lips at the memory. And before I can stop myself, I’m smiling back at her.

“Yeah. You always made the best ramyun.”