I didn’t know the fucking odds, but I was going to calculate them and perhaps play the lottery since I was so lucky.

Cal popped the cork over the sink and pulled out some juice glasses from the cupboard. I could feel October looking at me from the table, needing something, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t face her. Nor could I take my eyes off of Cal. He was even taller now, over six and a half feet. His hair was shorter and more stylish than it used to be, and he’d grown into his face in a good way. Birdlike features on a kid look weird, a little sinister even, but on a grown man with some depth and character, the effect is striking. Cal had transformed from an owl into a hawk.

He handed out the champagne, we clanked glasses, and I drank mine in one gulp. October didn’t touch hers. Cal took two sips and forgot about his.

“Seriously. How long has it been?” he asked, refilling my glass.

“Fourteen years.”

“Tell him,” he said to October. “Tell him how much I talk about him. I can’t tell a story from my childhood that doesn’t involve you.”

October nodded. “He talks about you all the time.” All the sparks were gone from her voice. She looked beside herself. “Blood Brothers.”

“Blood Brothers!” Cal shouted. “See! She knows!”

I wasn’t ready to talk about Blood Brothers either. I drank my second glass of champagne, even though I don’t like champagne, and it provided me with the dizzying kind of kick in the ass I needed to ask a question I was suddenly obsessed with knowing the answer to.

“How the fuck did you two meet?” I asked with too much gravity, glancing back and forth between Cal and October. “How long have you been together?”

“You want to tell it?” Cal asked October.

She shook her head and stared at the table. Now it was she who couldn’t look at me. The question had clearly unnerved her, and I felt bad about that. But I desperately needed some context to their relationship.

“She bought this property from me,” Cal said. “I’d purchased it for my mom, and after she died and I put it on the market, I was—”

I cut Cal off. “Wait. What?”

Terry had died? Another shock. I felt awful that I hadn’t known, that I hadn’t kept in touch with her, that I hadn’t been there for Cal when he lost his mother. I was the worst kind of human: a terrible friend.

“Good God, Cal. I’m so sorry.”

“Cancer,” he said. “She was sick for a long time. She did get to see me win a Grammy though. That meant a lot to her.” Cal picked up his glass of champagne but didn’t drink out of it, he just rolled it around in his palm. “I bought her this place right before she got sick. She didn’t have time to enjoy it for very long, and before she died she made me promise I would sell it to someone who would love it as much as she did.” Cal leaned over and kissed the top of October’s head. “Enter this incredible woman.”