While they waited for the check, Cole and Miriam went to find the bathroom, arguing along the way about the best Darcy, a fight they’d been having for years, when someone from behind the bar interrupted, “It’s obviously The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.”

They both spun to find a short man with long, dark hair, an old-fashioned waxed moustache, and a button-down shirt covered in flying pigs, holding a bottle of whiskey and grinning at them—although mostly, Miriam noticed, at Cole.

Cole answered his smile and pointed. “Yes! Miriam, finally someone understands!” He moved to shake the man’s hand. “Nicholas Jedediah Fraser IV. Cole to my friends, which you obviously are.”

The man was dwarfed by Cole’s size but seemed totally unfazed by his exuberance. He shook Cole’s hand back, hard. “It is entirely my pleasure, Nicholas Jedediah. Sawyer Bright.” The upward tilt of his head, and the glint in his eye, told Miriam that he was flirting. Miriam wasn’t sure Cole had noticed. Cole’s base interaction with all of humanity looked like flirting to most people.

He winked theatrically at Sawyer and hit the bar with his palm. “To be continued,” he said to the bartender, before he swept away.

When Ernie brought them their bill, Tara, true to form, insisted on paying it.

“You should join us for pub quiz next week,” Ernie said to Miriam. “Elijah and Jason run it, and it’s kind of the only fun to be had in this town if you’re between twenty-five and fifty.”

“She won’t still be here this weekend,” Tara said, her drawl thick and excruciatingly polite. “She’s coming home with me, to Charleston.”

“Oh,” Ernie said, looking at Hannah in confusion. “I thought Cass…Never mind. I’ll be back later to check on you.”

“What was that about?” Tara asked pointedly, her eyes cutting between Cole and Miriam. Cole ducked his head, and Tara reached over and flicked him. He looked up at Miriam, his sea-blue eyes beseeching.

He never had been able to say no to Tara, and Miriam knew it wasn’t fair to make him tell her this. Miriam had to get her shit together, she’d already fucked up badly by not being honest. She didn’t know if there was any way to mitigate the damage at this point. It might be too late to make amends, and Tara might genuinely not forgive her, but she could do the right thing anyway.

“Can we go outside to talk?” she asked. She knew Tara hated when laundry was aired in public.