Page 219 of What We Brave
"That's really good. You seem different, you know that? More settled."
"I feel more settled."
"It looks good on you."
The buzzer goes again and I immediately start drooling. Food's here. Jamila hops up to get it and I clear the counter and dig through a drawer for chopsticks. I find one pair, slightly splintered. Jamila pulls two new ones from the takeout bag.
We spread everything out on the counter because the kitchen table has a stack of unopened mail on it that I forgot about and I don't want Jamila to see how long it's been there.
She sees it anyway. Of course she does.
But amazing friend that she is, she just hands me the pad Thai and says, "So tell me more. Was that the first time you guys did a real going-out thing? Like, not just errands?"
"Second. The first was the farmer's market. Which..." I poke at a noodle. Let it slide off the chopstick. "Which didn't go great."
"What happened?"
I tell her about the market. The abbreviated version — the hand-holding, Joyce appearing, the drop. I try to stay calm and clinical, but really, I still low-key hate myself for what I did.
Jamila listens without interrupting. Chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth.
"I panicked," I say. "That's the short version. I saw someone I love and I panicked and I dropped Blake's hand and kept Reid's. And Blake spent the rest of the morning carrying grocery bags so his hands would have something to do."
"Oh, Laine," she says gently.
"Yeah."
"Did you talk about it?"
"Eventually. Reid kind of forced it." I take a sip of wine. "He's gotten annoyingly good at that. The whole we're-not-going-to-bed-pretending-this-is-fine thing." Like, remarkably good. There's this whole side of him that just showed up one day without warning. My Reid has layers.
"Good for Reid."
"Blake said he was hurt. Actually said it. Out loud. Which for Blake is like — that's a five-alarm emotional event. The man processes feelings like he's defusing ordnance."
Jamila almost smiles. "And you?"
"I told him I was a coward. He told me it was a reflex. Reid told us both to stop packaging things for each other's convenience." I set down my chopsticks. "And then we went to bed and nobody slept and the next morning we did yard work and talked about it more and it got... better. Not fixed. But better." Waking up in Reid's bed alone felt like a punishment. I know he didn't mean it like that, it was a hard night for everyone. But I didn't like it.
"That's healthy."
"Disgustingly healthy. I hardly recognize us."
She laughs, but her eyes are doing that thing where she's listening to what I'm not saying as much as what I am.
"So if it's getting better," she says carefully, "what's the part that isn't?"
I pick up my wine glass. Put it down. Pick it up again. Do I want to go there? Tonight was supposed to be fun and easy. But honestly? I need to talk some stuff out, and Jamila's the only one who's going to get it. The guys never will.
"Can I tell you something I haven't told them?"
Jamila sets her chopsticks down. Full attention. "Of course."
"The strangers at the market. The soap lady. The people who stare." I turn my glass by the stem. "Reid and Blake don't notice them. They genuinely don't. If someone isn't a physical threat, they don't register. It's like they've got this military filter —danger? no? irrelevant— and everything else just slides off."
"But not you."
"Not me." I take a breath. "I see all of it. Every look. Every double-take. Every person doing the math."
