Blair walks me back to my apartment. My mind is racing. Is G really this petty? Am I supposed to be flattered that he’s jealous, that he’s now trying to make me jealous? Am I jealous? (Yes.) All I want is to spend a little time with my friend, who’s come all this way. I don’t want to be thinking about G right now. I lean over and take Blair’s arm. He smiles down at me, and suddenly I no longer am. Instead, I’m transported, walking with him through these same streets as though it’s the first time. Is it only in retrospect that it felt like the beginning of something? Or not the beginning, because Blair has always been there, before that moment and after it and still. It was his voice on the phone; his face in the gallery; he was in the waiting room after my surgery; he told me in a thousand small ways that he would stand by me come what may. Not Luke. With Luke there were always conditions, I see that now; our love was based on a contract we’d signed when we were too young to know what life could be.

“Do you want to come see my place?” I say to Blair when we arrive at my door on Defensa.

“Of course.” He follows me in through the lobby into the courtyard, and his eyes fill with wonder. “Wow,” he says, ducking his head to clear the archway covered in ivy.

“This is the place,” I say. We head into my tiny apartment. “Small, I know, but I love it.”

“It’s cozy,” Blair says. We sit on the edge of the bed, which is really the only place to sit.

“So what do you think?”

“Of?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, everything! My apartment, the steaks, my friends.”

“Your place is great.” He smiles. “The steak was the best I’ve ever had in my life. As for your friends, I stand by my opinion of Zorro. Gemma seems a bit nuts, but she’s fun. I do like Cali,” he says.

“Of course you do.” I laugh. “Everyone is in love with her.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t mean it like that and you know it.”

“What do I know?” I say, smiling. “She’s awfully beautiful.” Am I testing him? Surely not. Fuck, my head is a mess.

“You know,” he says, turning to face me, “who I love.”

I feel my jaw drop a little, and then he’s kissing me. Blair, my oldest, dearest friend. For a moment, I’m lost in it all. And then I pull back.