Frankie was nowhere to be seen when they took their seats in the back of the van, and unlike so many years ago, Ezra was relieved that she was chronically late. Gregory bounced out of the lobby and hopped on too. He was looking dapper in a bow tie and a suit and a bowler hat, though he had slung his red parka on top. He noticed Mimi give him the once-over and said, “This is how we roll in Portland. It’s like fusion but for my clothes.”

And Mimi smiled and said, “No, you look extremely handsome. Would you consider signing up for Datify?” and Ezra, who was still one catastrophe away from a nervous breakdown, leaned over and kissed her cheek because Mimi could be—was in fact—pretty great, even if she were too often in saleswoman mode.

Gregory laughed and said, “Uh, no fucking way, but thanks,” and Mimi made a sour face betraying her chipper facade, but only for a second. Then she beamed, though Ezra knew her heart wasn’t in it, and said, “I’m always here when you’re ready.”

The van wound its way through the darkening streets, now illuminated by festive holiday lights, and soon enough, they were back on campus, and Ezra wished he could appreciate its beauty, tried to just appreciate the moment. He knew he absolutely could not afford to come undone with Mimi. He knew that if she had even a whiff of a scent that he’d spent the prior night with Frankie, even if this were all just a massive misunderstanding, a practical joke they’d one day laugh about, that his chance to propose, to propel his life forward, the life he now realized he’d built mostly around the idea of her, would be obliterated.

In the hotel room, he’d been shaky when he dropped the phone back in the cradle, his call to chew out Frankie aborted. Mimi, fresh from the shower, with a towel on top of her head and the hotel bathrobe swaddling her porcelain skin, hadn’t seemed to notice that his voice wobbled, that he stepped too quickly into the bathroom for his own shower and closed the door too loudly behind him. If he’d been paying closer attention, maybe he’d have detected she had been distracted too.

It didn’t take long—somewhere between the shampoo and conditioner—for his growing rage toward Frankie to plant seeds, take root, and blossom. Ezra was unaccustomed to tapping into his anger, but now that he had, he found it comforting, he found it mature, he wondered what had taken him so long to get here. Of course Frankie would kiss him on Middie Walk, launching an emotional insurrection. Of course she would insert herself into his life just as Ezra was trying to put everything behind him. Of course, of course, of course! By the time he emerged from the shower, he was goddamned steamingly irate, having completely forgotten that Frankie was supposed to hate him too, and if she chose to kiss him honestly and without motive, perhaps it was because she meant it.