“I told her she could choose.” Ronnie glanced at Esme again. The conversation about friends felt unfinished. What had Esme been about to say? Then again, Esme started sentences that felt like they’d be revelatory, but they often ended up being about nothing.

Lane moved across the room to kiss them; Ronnie was paranoid that she smelled like Charlie’s weed pen. “I’m going to take a quick shower, and then we’ll make these pancakes,” she declared, hurrying off to the bathroom.

Ronnie stepped into the shower before the water was properly hot. Halfway through lathering up, she heard the door open and noticed Lane’s blurry figure through the shower door’s mottled glass. “Just grabbing something!” he called, but then opened the door with a saucy smile. “Unless I can come in?”

Ronnie considered it. She was so drawn to Lane—his big, warm body, his floppy hair, his muscled arms. Just pressing herself into him made her feel safer than she’d felt with any man. But then the notion of Esme walking in on them flitted through her brain. Nightmare. She flicked him with water. She didn’t mind Esme seeing them being affectionate, but she liked to leave the actual sex until after the little girl was asleep. “I’m almost done,” she said.

But as Lane’s gaze traveled longingly down Ronnie’s frame, she felt a thrill. She leaned out of the shower and gave him a long kiss. “Mmm,” he said, closing his eyes. That was one of the things Ronnie loved about Lane—how he seemed to lap up affection, savoring every drop. He experienced the world in that way, one of the few people she knew who was actually in the moment, so aware of the world around him.

They’d met in line at Trader Joe’s. Before moving to Raisin Beach, Ronnie hadn’t realized Trader Joe’s was a thing; all Cobalt had was the Kuhn’s market, which smelled like old bread and bologna. Esme had been only two and a half at the time, and Ronnie was holding her because the Trader Joe’s cart seats were oddly narrow. She couldn’t find any of the normal items from other stores—Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Breyers ice cream. And Esme was on the verge of a tantrum. Ronnie was trying to add up the cost of everything in the cart in her head, worrying if she had enough cash to cover it all.

When she’d gotten to the checkout line, she hadn’t known what to do with her groceries. There wasn’t a belt, per se—just a little desk where the checker stood. She was suddenly overwhelmed, which brought her right back to what had happened only a few short months before. It amazed her that her hands had done such things.