Kiss Her Once for Me (104)

“Yeah, but what if it was a pity invite?”

“Now. What have we talked about?” Ari says in her most patronizing voice.

I roll my eyes and repeat back Ari’s words. “I should not assume people invite me to social events out of pity, since that’s not a thing that actually happens very often.”

“Exactly. You’re not showing up to shit all over her special day. All you’re doing is walking in, congratulating her, and giving her your gift.”

The gift in question is tucked under my other arm.

“This is a totally normal gesture between friends.”

Friends. The word leaves a sharp, metallic tang in my mouth, sits like a knot in my chest. Friends.

Three months ago, I had one friend, singular. Meredith.

And, of course, I still have Meredith, sending me TikToks I never watch and screenshots of dating profiles for people I have no interest in dating. We have our constant video chats and my upcoming trip to Chicago. I don’t know what I would do without Meredith, but I also have so much more than Meredith now.

I have Ari and her occasional condescension and her unwavering loyalty and her admirable confidence that she is, somehow, my best friend and always has been. I have the Brideshead housemates. I have Andrew, who walked back into my life and then kindly refused to walk back out again. And he brought others with him.

Like Dylan, who showed up at Brideshead to drag me to brunch two days after Andrew’s surprise visit. (“A hedge fund?” I asked. To which Dylan scoffed, “I know, I truly can’t take him anywhere in this city anymore.”)

Like Meemaw and Lovey, who called me out of the blue one evening and invited me to a sip-and-paint. Apparently, it happens twice a month at their favorite wine bar in Lake Oswego, and after we did amazing drunk-replications of Starry Night, we made plans to come back.

Like Katherine, who dropped off a bag of food one Sunday afternoon and then invited herself inside for a bottle of wine that soon turned into three. It turns out she’s a little lonely post-separation from Alan. I’ve agreed to come over next weekend to help her paint the walls of her new condo.

I used to think letting more people in would mean having more people who could ultimately disappoint me. Hurt me. Walk out of my life. But having more people means there are more arms at the ready to catch me when I fall. And I fall a lot.

And it feels good to be the arms for someone else, too. It feels good to both need and be needed—to have seasons of needing and seasons of giving—but when I think about Jack. About being Jack’s friend. The thought calcifies inside my lungs.

I haven’t seen her, even since I’ve started seeing her family. Dylan and Katherine and Meemaw all assure me that she’s doing well, that she’s moving on, that friendship between us is possible. And if I want to keep the rest of the Kim-Prescotts in my life, friendship seems like the right path forward.

“You ready?” Ari asks as we cross the street toward the building. There’s a small banner out front announcing the soft opening with those same words printed in purple: “All Are Welcome.”

I hope that includes me.

The building is almost unrecognizable from the place she showed me a year ago. New windows, new paint, and a new sign out front. There’s an awning and a pride flag, and I feel slightly untethered when I think about all that has happened between last Christmas and this moment so that Jack could achieve her dream.

But I remind myself I am tethered. To Ari’s arm.

“Ready.”

We step inside the converted warehouse, and I’m overwhelmed by the size of the crowd, by the volume of the room, by the sugary smells and rising heat. There’s a small stage where a trio is playing acoustic music, and laid over that is the sound of dozens of different voices, grating and out-of-tune.

Ari pulls me in tighter, and I take a deep breath and try to calm my anxiety by focusing on how I would draw this place—this beautiful place that belongs to Jack. The first thing I notice are the lavender walls, bright and cheerful and so damn gay. Industrial lights wash the room in a warm glow and a giant window facing the east must fill the space with natural light every morning. On the opposite side of the room from the stage there’s the giant counter, the exposed kitchen, the glass display case filled with a million different colors of pastries and pies and cookies and cupcakes. In between is a hodgepodge of tables. Some customers are sitting down, using forks to dive into delicious desserts, but most people are standing, milling around, sampling the food as it’s carried around the room on platters.

I spot the grandmas, passing out macarons on serving trays. Katherine is wearing an apron and refilling coffee cups. Dylan and Andrew are surrounded by hip-looking twentysomethings, and I can see Andrew animatedly talking up the place: he’s in full investment-bro mode, but he’s out here putting that broiness to good use. And he’s holding Dylan’s hand as he does it.

And then there’s Jack. I spot her immediately, as soon as we step inside. She’s wearing her usual uniform of loose-fitting jeans and black boots, but on top, she’s gone with a linen button-down cuffed at the elbow, a purple apron with the Butch Oven logo splashed across the front. She looks like herself—like more of herself, in this place she made into a reality by sheer force of will—taking up space, demanding all the attention. Forearms and thighs. Her dark brown eyes and her half-moon smile and her extremely heavy gait. She’s not restless, not fidgeting. She seems at peace. She’s too loud, and she’s absolutely everything, chatting with the people who came here to celebrate this, to celebrate her. She accomplished her dream.