Page 181 of Wild Card 13

Not heavy snow. Not enough to stop traffic or make people dramatic. Just a clean, steady fall that had dusted the parked cars along the curb and turned the sidewalks into narrow white ribbons beneath the streetlamps.

The little park down the street from my building sat tucked between two renovated warehouses and an old brick storefront that had become a bookstore-cafe sometime before I moved back to Northbend. In summer, people brought lunch there and sat on the low stone walls beneath the trees. Now the benches were buried under smooth caps of snow, the bare branches strung with warm lights the city had never bothered taking down after the holidays.

The last of the winter sunset lingered low behind the buildings, a thin wash of rose-gold fading into blue. It caught on the snow and made everything look softer than it had any right to be.

Dottie trotted ahead of me with absolute confidence, nose low, ears swinging. She loved this park because several local dogs had apparently been leaving complex political statements near the young maple trees, and Dottie took civic engagement seriously.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

I ignored it.

Dottie shoved her face into a snowbank.

The phone buzzed again.

Then again.

I stopped beneath one of the trees and pulled it out with the resignation of a woman who already knew exactly which two people had decided peace was unnecessary.

Group Name: Girls Only

Bea: Does anyone know if Arlo still has that whipped goat cheese avocado toast on the brunch menu?

Freya: He better. I have emotionally committed to it.

Bea: Please tell me he does because pregnancy has turned me into a food monster.

Freya: Excellent. Eleven?

Works for me.

Bea: Great. Also... Shortcake?

No.

Freya: Oh, I was wondering when we were getting to that.

Bea: That man called you Shortcake.

That nickname should have died in high school.

Freya: Apparently Buzz didn’t get the memo.

He’s annoying.

Bea: Interesting. Because he looked pretty happy saying it.

He looks happy eating arena popcorn off the floor. I wouldn’t build a thesis around his facial expressions.

Freya: I’ve watched men tear ACLs with less obvious pain than the look on that man’s face every time you walk away.

You two are insufferable.

I stared at the screen. A tiny puff of laughter escaped me before I could stop it, immediately visible in the cold air. Dottie looked up from the snowbank. “What?” I asked her. “She’s dramatic.”

Dottie blinked.

Freya: And yet... we’re right.