“Got it,” Byron said. “But for what it’s worth, I am sorry. I feel like she’s a friend of yours, I should have asked, but I’m still not one hundred percent there, it was early.”

He mumbled a bit more at the tail end of it.

“Why don’t you swap back to Tristan?”

“Thanks for being cool,” he said. He paused, “I really like her.”

Then he blurred out. Like he couldn’t even look me in the eye after admitting that last bit. Running away.

Tristan just smirked, enjoying himself too much.

“I’ll get going so Vista can come out of hiding,” Tristan said, and in contrast to Byron, even trying to be quiet, the pitch and volume of his voice were on the borderline of what I’d consider tolerable.

“You sure you’re good?” I asked him, stopping him before he could walk off. “Absolutely sure?”

“My brother deserves good things,” Tristan said. “If it’s another human being being close, nothing rude? That’s just human contact. It’s human contact with someone I like and respect. He’s willing to extend me the same allowance. We’ll figure it out.”

I nodded.

“Later today, I’m seeing this guy I knew, Nate. Catching up.”

“That’s great.”

“We’ll see,” Tristan said. The smile dropped off his face. “He disappeared after my attempted murder. Byron says he’ll put in a good word, reassure Nate, but I don’t think that kind of betrayal and surprise is something a guy just gets over.”

“Good luck.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Tristan told me.

He looked back at the door, then smiled again, chuckling under his breath.

He left, and I waited a good minute before the door slid open. Vista didn’t emerge.

I ventured inside. The lights were on, now.

“I didn’t think you were close,” Vista said, accusatory. She had the phone in her hand, like she was trying to decipher the texts and figure out how things had come to this.

“What?”

“You said Photon Mom was seeing your family, not your family seeing her, so I thought you were somewhere else, you’d have to travel here, and you can’t fly because you got in trouble, right?”

“We were in the conference room near the main lobby.”

“Fuck,” Vista said. “I’m so humiliated. I thought there’d be time to sleep in another ten minutes, take him back to his dorm room while chatting with Tristan, come back and meet you.”

“I knocked. Twice.”

“They knock constantly, whenever they’re trying to round some of us up for an errand.”

The person next door thumped.

“Let’s go,” she said, quieter.

“Coat,” I pointed out. “We’re going outside. Garden balcony, third floor.”

She got her coat. Bulky and covered in patches. It made me think of Rachel Lindt, a bit.

“What was the terrible pick-up line you used?” I asked.