Alex laughed, pulling her phone from her bag to select the photo she always referenced when she wanted to show someone what Danial looked like. Her fingers had committed the click pattern to memory, second down on the left on Google Image search.

“Yes, on the boat. Well, sort of on the boat.” She passed the phone to Louisa, who promptly brought a hand to her chest in a gasp. “But then again in my hotel room. I left the boat for a few days, and he came to give me a necklace I forgot in his room.”

“I bet that’s what he came for.” Louisa used her fingers to zoom in on the photo, examining the details of his face. “Fuck, this is the man you were so upset about? I totally understand. And I’ve never felt more annoyed about being pregnant—this conversation calls for a rosé and a smoke.”

“Truly.”

“So, you hooked up, and now what? You’re his wedding date?” She handed Alex the phone, taking one last look at Danial as she passed it over.

“Well, not exactly. We’re on fine terms, we can be friends or whatever, but we can’t be together.”

“Oh, was the sex bad? Isn’t that always the way?”

“God, no.” Alex laughed, feeling almost delirious with how exceptional it was. “We just have way too much baggage. We’re always being kind of… awful to each other. It’s a long story, but I did something that really messed up his job. It was a nightmare.”

“Why is that?” Louisa sipped her drink, looking at Alex with the breezy expression of total nonjudgment she’d always had. “Why are you always being awful to each other?”

“Well…” Alex thought and tried to answer as truthfully as possible. “I think because he hurt me so badly back in school. And it wasn’t just that he rejected me, you know? It was that he let me humiliate myself and wouldn’t even talk to me as a friend. He avoided me after, like I never meant anything to him. And he knew how insecure I already was in that group, you know, because they were all so privileged and chic and I was just this loser from upstate New York who happened to date their friend.”

“I’m sure you weren’t a loser.” At Alex’s earnest tone, Louisa seemed to relax into a similar emotional vulnerability. “At least, you weren’t a loser when I met you.”