We used the morning the way we meant to—reading aloud to one another, practicing a few lines of a play Angel was fond of, and then walking without a destination. The city outside was awake but not insistent; the three of us moved in companionable silence, hands brushing spontaneously and often. Conley found a stray bookshop with a back room full of odd volumes; I watched him select an old essay on gardens with the reverence of a man choosing a friend. He handed it to me at the counter as if passing a baton. Small exchanges like that are how love accumulates.
In the heat of the afternoon, work asked us back. The council wanted an updated timeline for the school pilot; a donor sought clarification about how the endowment’s disbursements would be managed next quarter. We handled each call wi
