“Well, you know, first child and all that. If we have another, we’ll be too tired to take pictures. Although I don’t know if either one of us can be more tired. But you’ve got me curious. . . . Sam? Did you bury the lede when you asked to talk? What’s going on with Sam?”

He smiled and scratched at his beard, swiping that drop of coffee away. “Yeah, okay, I have good news of my own. Samantha and I are getting married.”

It took me a moment to respond. His clear brown eyes were beaming like a child’s, and I knew he wanted me to be happy for him. As happy as he appeared to be for himself.

But . . .

“Are you surprised?” he asked.

“Kind of. But that’s not an emergency, is it?”

“Didn’t you see it on Facebook?” he asked. “You’re on there all the time. Sam posted about it today.”

I stalled by taking a big drink of my Americano, which suddenly tasted less appealing than it had a few moments before. I felt Blake’s eyes on me the whole time I swallowed, as he anticipated my reaction to his big news. If Sam had posted that day, I’d missed it.

“Well, come on,” he said, impatient. “Aren’t you happy for me?”

“I am. I am. Congratulations.” I put the mug down and offered my hand across the table. We shook, which felt as strange as it must have looked to anyone who saw us. Two men shaking hands across a table in a coffee shop as though they’d just closed a business deal. “That’s great, man. Really. You know I think very highly of Samantha. She’s wonderful.”

“You think she’s too good for me,” he said.

“I didn’t say that—”

“It’s okay. Everybody thinks that. Hell, I do. She’s organized and proper. She knows which fork to eat with first and how to fold a fitted sheet.”

“It’s not that,” I said. The caffeine made my heart run faster, like a galloping wild horse. My fingertips tingled. And if I couldn’t be honest and forthright with an old friend, then what was the point? “This is the . . . Is it the third time you’ve been engaged to Sam now? And the other two times it—you know—didn’t work out. So, I just . . . I’m wondering if it will stick.”