“She usually does.” Was Madeleine blushing again? “Anyway, I just…wanted to stop by and say thank you. It meant a lot.” She bit her lip. Hoped they’d hear what she was actually saying.

Arjun and Jeremy looked at each other. Somewhat to Madeleine’s dismay, Jeremy leaned forward and rested his elbows on the countertop. “So,” he said, in the manner of a man with something on his mind.

“Jer,” Arjun said warningly.

“No, no. I come in peace.” He raised one hand, as if to prove it. “Just seems as if there’s unfinished business, and I hear you’re leaving soon.”

Madeleine’s shoulders slumped. “Does everyone talk about everything here?”

“Not everything,” Jeremy replied. “There’s certain things they’re remarkably close-mouthed about. At least to us outsiders. I’m sure they’re nattering nonstop to each other.” He tilted his head to the side. “It takes a while to be accepted in a place like this, but you seem to have managed it much faster than we have.”

“I don’t think so,” Madeleine hedged. “Everyone’s been really nice, but I think it’s different when you’re just visiting.”

“Dunno about that.” Arjun leaned back against the coffee bar and crossed his arms. “You moved in with one of the islanders and started working his farm. Took up with his daughter, they say. Everyone talks about you as if you’re one of them already. Then they stop talking if we get too close.”

She almost said I’m sorry, but she wasn’t responsible for other people’s behavior, even when it involved her. “I don’t know what’s up with that, but it’s too bad they haven’t made you feel welcome.”

“We’re not unwelcome, exactly,” Jeremy said. “Just held at arm’s length. At first we wondered if it was because we’re gay, but given how the villagers have taken to you two, I reckon that’s not it.”

Having laid down the gauntlet, he returned to drying the carafe.

Madeleine had completed her errand, and she’d be within her rights to march out of here and never come back. She could tell them to mind their own business, for good measure. She didn’t owe anyone any explanations.

She’d also never had other gay people to talk to before, and she still wasn’t used to thinking other, applying the word to herself as well.

“The first day I was here, I didn’t behave well,” she said carefully. “I think you remember.”

Arjun nodded while Jeremy replaced the carafe.

“I was working through some issues. When Hæra and I came here, Jeremy, Arjun implied you’d done something similar.”

Jeremy sent a startled look to Arjun, who shrugged and said, “You thought you were straight until you were twenty-six.”