By now, they’d reached the private room.

“Here ya go,” Zoe said. “And you’re welcome.”

They both glanced around the room. The cleaning service hadn’t yet swept up. There were disposable wineglasses littered on cocktail tables, crumpled-up napkins scattered around too. The flower arrangements had started to wilt, and the tablecloths were askew. It was astonishing, Ezra thought, that he was here last night and had absolutely no recollection of it.

“You’re leaving?” Ezra asked, moving from table to table, checking for his phone, lifting the linens to search the floor, scooting out the chairs.

“I’m on work-study, dude. I have actual hours to clock in.” She gave him another pitying look. “I’m not running a charity.” Then: “Also, it’s New Year’s Eve. I have better things to do than spend it in a library with some old guy.”

“Wait,” Ezra said, deflating, seeing no sign of a phone. “Just . . . can you look around, see if anything jumps out at you?”

“Like an explanation about why you’re cheating on your girlfriend with your ex-girlfriend?” Zoe made a face.

“I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I’ve never been a cheater.” Ezra felt a rush of shame. Though what he said was true. But then he remembered how Frankie was right: he had been caught in Vegas and yanked out by the elbows and told he was never welcome back at the Bellagio, and then two days later, the MGM. What if he’d been a cheater this whole time? What if the story he told himself was just that? A convenient narrative because it blurred out the messy parts.

Zoe ran her fingers over a shelf of books, tracking them all the way toward the back of the room, where a giant blackboard was adorned with Polaroids. She stopped and stared, and Ezra took ten steps forward—just like he had this morning, pacing back and forth in Homer, he would unconsciously count his steps in his mind—to stand beside her. In front of them were at least a hundred photos, taped up in lines. Seemingly, Ezra thought, by teams or at least by pairs. He squinted and searched the faces, looking for his own.

Zoe spotted him first.

“There.” She jabbed her finger. “You’re right there. With the ex-girlfriend.”

Indeed. There he was. In chalk beside the photo, someone had written: TEAM FREZRA.

That’s what April used to call them whenever they played all’s fair football or foosball in their dorm rec room or just because she thought it was endearingly hilarious. Ezra hadn’t thought of that in years. At the top of the board, in the same handwriting, someone had scrawled: APRIL AND CONNOR’S MILLENIUM REUNION WEDDING EPIC SCAVENGER HUNT. He and Frankie were standing rigidly side by side, each of them looking uncomfortable, though Frankie admittedly looking more so. Ezra could tell by the way that his eyes were half-open, the looseness in his jaw, that he must have already been on his way to drunk by then. He couldn’t blame Frankie for this, he knew. He could blame Gregory, who he just remembered was probably waiting for him out front. And he could blame himself. He should have known better than to mix a Xanax with booze. He did know better. It had just been so long since he’d had to.