“Can you believe this?” Dev asked him, tapping his finger on one of the pages he’d handed over.

“Oh, it’s been coming for months,” Danial answered, taking a sip of his sparkling water.

“What has?” Alex asked, a little too eager to join the conversation.

“The far-right populist party is going to win in Spain.” Dev leaned forward to hand her the paper, which she took without looking. The word populist sounded almost more pointed than far right in his tone.

“It’s that guy, right? Machado?”

“Miranda,” Danial corrected, not looking at her.

Her heart rose into her throat with a familiar frustration—he was trying to punish her for her earlier avoidance of him.

“No, I know who I’m talking about. Machado is the ex-television host who started holding those big rallies down in Granada.” Her voice was steady and unapologetic.

“That’s not the guy who is going to win.” He was looking at her now, his dark eyes piercing into hers. Suddenly, she was twenty-two again. “You’re thinking of Miranda.”

“Guys, what did I—” Bee started.

“Shh,” Paul insisted. “This is good for them.”

He leaned back in his chair, smiling at the two of them with an encouraging openness. He used to love their political sparring matches, and was undoubtedly hopeful that another one might mean things were returning to the way they used to be.

“I didn’t say he was going to win. But he’s not the leader of the movement, Machado is.” Alex scooted herself forward on the bench, leaning in slightly.

“What exactly is a leader of the movement, if it’s not the literal guy leading the literal movement?”

His tone had a bitter edge to it: the condescension no longer felt like a heated game they played, but rather the pure language of disdain. Paul’s face dropped as another anxious silence overtook the group.

“He is the figurehead of the party, Danial, but that doesn’t mean he’s the reason it’s successful. He’s just a puppet: Machado is the reason they’re all out to vote. And I think I would know better than you, I—”

“Make TikToks about eating the rich, we know.”

A tiny gasp emerged from Paul, whose gaze was now fixed squarely on the horizon.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t listen to—” Bee started to interject with a pointed finger, but Dev gently brought her hand back to the table. He looked over at Danial, silently imploring him to apologize.

“I’m sorry, you work in politics. You’re right.” He seemed to understand the inappropriateness of his behavior, but his chest was still flushed with anger, rising and falling with breathless intensity. He couldn’t stop himself. And she understood, because neither could she—not when they got like this. When he resumed, his tone was calmer, more measured. “But that doesn’t mean you’re an expert on the situation in Spain.”