Page 84 of Shades of Grey & Gold

The 5th Street café is, predictably, Becca’s new favorite place in the city within walking distance.

She sits across from me in the chair that has become Cal’s chair—he’s not here this morning, he had a meeting, which means Gio is at the table behind us and Becca keeps waving at him. He keeps maintaining professional neutrality, which she finds hilarious. She is convinced that she will get him to break while she’s here for the next week.

Becca wraps her hands around the mocha she ordered and looks at me over the top of it with the focused attention of a woman conducting a wellness check.

“You look different,” she notes slowly.

“I had a good night’s sleep.”

“Not what I mean.” She tilts her head. “You look like yourself. More like yourself than you have in a really long time.”

I look down at my own coffee, hiding a smile.

“I think I forgot what that felt like for a while.”

“I know.” She says it simply. “I watched it for two years and I didn’t know how to say it without sounding like I was criticizing you. You were disappearing. Even…” She pauses, then continues with a sigh, “even with Bart and the house and Carla and all the stuff you built, you were getting smaller and smaller and I didn’t know how to—”

She stops. Her throat bobs.

“Anyway. You’re back. That’s all I wanted to say.”

I reach across the table and squeeze her hand.

“I’m back,” I agree.

She squeezes back hard and then releases. “And not because of a man, okay? Because—”

I cut her off with my hand. “No, because I feel like I’m finally back on track with chasing the dream I started and didn’t get to finish. And I feel like I can do it. But also yes.” I smile at her and glance back at Gio. “The man part doesn’t hurt. Cal has a lot to do with it. Because I don’t think I’ve ever felt that… feeling of someone just being all in to support me.”

“Ew.” She makes a face. “Then what am I?”

I roll my eyes at her exaggeratedly and lean back. “Not a man who is all in to support me,” I repeat.

“Fair. Now tell me about law school. You said the transcripts got approved?”

“Faster than they should have.” I give her a look and our conversation from last week telepathically works its way between us on the table.

“The donation.”

“He says he made acontributionto the library fund,” I emphasize the word.

“The library fund,” she repeats knowingly, with mock seriousness.

“That’s what he said.”

Becca presses her lips together, waves a hand as if dismissing the implication. “Right. Yes. Of course. The library fund. How utterly philanthropic of him.” She takes a sip of her mocha. “And your classes?”

I tell her about the courses I am set to start in a few weeks. I already received the syllabi; I did some sleuthing on the professors. And I recount to her the sensation of walking back onto a college campus after years away and realizing that the dream is still there, still mine, still something I can hold.

We discuss the internship that fell into place through one of Cal’s contacts at a criminal defense firm in town.

She jokes that Cal will probably text me every morning when I leave for school. She says he might actually listen to me drone on and on in legalese and might actually payattention; says she’s happy for that because she won’t have to pretend to understand for me anymore.

I tell her about Cal’s joke that Gio should also be enrolled since he will have to sit in all my courses with me. I tell her about how Cal spoiled me with a fancy bag to carry all my files and schoolbooks.

I gush with excitement and for the first time in forever, it feels like I can. Like I’m allowed to be excited.

Becca listens to all of this without interrupting, which takes visible effort.