Page 134 of Semantics

“Nice to meet you,” Gabi said.

“You too.”

“Do you want to join us?” Violet asked. “Sarai can pull up a chair.”

“Maybe we should tell them another time now,” Stella whispered to Violet.

“No way. We’ve been waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” Sarai asked.

She pulled up a couple of chairs and set them at the end of the booth, where she and Gabi sat down.

“To tell you what we asked you all here for. I’m moving in with Stella. She asked me on our anniversary, and we’re… I’m ready.” Violet glanced at Arlowe, who rolled her eyes at her. “I’m ready to move out of the house.”

“Oh. Well, duh,” Sarai said.

“Duh?” she asked.

“We assumed you’d done that already and didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Your bedroom looks like a dorm room after a student moves out and they come in to inspect the place to make sure that nothing’s missing or damaged,” Arlowe noted.

“It does not.” Violet laughed.

“Your mattress is bare, Violet.”

“I’m washing the bed linens,” she argued.

“You’ve been sleeping at Stella’s every night,” Enya replied.

“Yeah, to help us all make the adjustment.”

“Can I have your room?” Sarai asked.

“Nope. I have dibs, remember?” Arlowe said.

“She’s right,” Violet replied.

“You guys don’t care?” Stella asked. “I brought Kleenex because I thought you might cry.”

She held up her cute little pack of tissues.

“I love her,” Violet said and laughed before she rested her head on Stella’s shoulder.

“Yeah, we know,” Sarai stated. “And we’re happy for you, Vi. We all knew this would happen eventually, and we’ve been preparing for it.”

“I’ll pay rent until you find another roommate, so you don’t have to worry about that. Arlowe, are you paying attention to anything I’m saying?”

Arlowe had her head down, looking at her phone.

“Sorry. You two think this is a big deal, but we’ve been expecting it for months.” She finished typing something on her phone and looked up. “It was Mitchell. He had a question for me about the patch he’s working on.”

Mitchell was one of three engineers they’d hired since the investment money had landed. They also had a part-timer who helped Enya work on the gamification side of things, and an intern for Sarai, who was in college for marketing. Their little company now had ten full-time employees, five regular freelancers, and a consultant who was sleeping with the CEO. Most of them were fully remote, but two of them lived in town, so sometimes, they’d come to the garage for meetings or to work.

Violet patted that consultant’s thigh, kissed her on the neck, and said, “I don’t think they’re going to miss me.”

“Yes, we will. This sucks. Everything’s changing,” Enya said. “But it’s also supposed to change. Hopefully, we will all move out of the house one day because we’ve found our person how you found Stella.”

“I hope so. I want that for all of you. Well, you and Sarai. I’m not sure about Arlowe because she’s an ass.”