I have visions of the three of us hanging out on the dock all morning, Lou and Issy getting reacquainted and Issy and me getting to know each other, but Lou has lessons from nine until noon so when I get up at nine thirty, after finising the coffee she brought to me in bed, I'm alone with Issy. She's lying on a towel on the dock, holding a book above her head and using it to shade her eyes from the sun. I grab a pair of sunglasses on my way out to her; they weren't there yesterday so I can only assume they belong to her.

"Want these?" I ask, waving them at her. She nearly drops the book on her face when she hears my voice.

"You walk very quietly," she says.

"I think it's the grass. Natural muffler."

I hold out the sunglasses to her. She takes them, puts them on over her actual glasses, a precarious balance.

"They're not prescription?"

"Nah. Haven't got around to it. This works fine for now," she says, holding her head in a very specific position so she won't lose both pairs of glasses. This kid. "Thanks, Charlie."

"You don't need to worry about your first impression, by the way," I say as I sit next to her on my own towel. "You told me not to judge you based on last night, but if you'll let me, it's a very positive judgement." I sneak a look at the book she's reading. Something heavy and non-fiction and physics-based. "School reading?"

"Oh, no, this is for fun. I haven't started on the reading list for my classes yet."

"You're reading about"–I peer at the book–"how to die in space, for fun?"

"It's not as dark as it sounds. It's more like this epic tour of the universe and how deadly it is, in a cool way, like how many different ways stars can die." She puts the book down and sits up, the sunglasses falling off. She catches them, snapping them shut. "Listen, we don't have to do this."

"Do what?" Shit. Have I fucked up already?

"The whole, like, awkwardly getting to know each other thing," she says. "I trust my mom. She loves you, and I love her, and I know she doesn't throw around feelings like that easily. I mean, my dad's been dead fifteen years and you're the first person she's shown any interest in."

"Um. What're you saying?"

"I'm saying you don't need to try to win me over or anything. I'm already won. Welcome to the family." She holds up a hand. I high five it. She smiles and it's the opposite of Lou's smile. Issy's is all teeth.

"That was easier than I was expecting it to be," I say, sitting on my hands. "I was worried it was going to be awkward."

"Why?"

"Mostly the age thing, I think. I'm only five years older than you."

Issy shrugs. "Age is just a number. I think it loses its significance once you're an adult and there's nothing the law prohibits you from doing because of your age."

"The law prohibits me from running for president for another decade." Eleven years, actually. Well, ten and a half.

She laughs. "I don't care about your age, Charlie. My mom's a grown woman, she can do what she wants. I don't live here anymore. It's not up to me to dictate who she dates. I've been waiting for this for years – you have no idea how excited I got when she told me about you."

"When did she tell you?"

"Officially, a few days ago," Issy says, "but the minute she told me that you were staying with her after that storm messed up your hotel, I had a feeling. I was just waiting, ever since then, for her to drop the G word."

"Me too," I confess. Issy gives me a knowing look, like we're in on something together. It's like pieces of a puzzle slotting into place, slowly building a connection.

"My flight didn't get canceled," she says.

"What?"

"I finished my summer job and I couldn't wait to meet you – or meet you again, I guess, though I don't really remember you from when I was thirteen – so I changed my flight. It wasn't canceled. I just got impatient."

"Oh my god. You're a terror."

"So I've been told."

"Does your mom know?"

"Yeah. She's right, I'm a terrible liar. The second we met at the airport she asked why the flight was canceled and I crumbled. Couldn't last one question from my mom. I'd be terrible under torture."

"Hey, at least I know you're not bullshitting me."

"I could never. Scout's honor."

"Were you a Girl Scout?"

"Absolutely. It's what got me into STEM. Mom helped me get every badge all the way from kindergarten to twelfth grade and one of the first was a space science explorer badge." She taps the book and says, "I never looked back."

*

I haven't gone on a run for a few days so when Riley asks if I want to join her I leap at the chance. It feels good to move again, to feel the sidewalk turn to dust under my feet as we turn off the road and towards the overlook via a different route. We keep pace for eight miles and it's not so hot out today – the sky is still bright and the sun is out, but August is coming to a close and that fall crispness is on its way – so I am less disgustingly sweaty when we end up at Cafe Au Late, in dire need of refueling.

"Little birdie tells me you're sticking around," Riley says through a mouthful of banana loaf.

"Your little birdie has good information. What else did they tell you?"

"Um, that you've met Issy now which must mean Lou wants to marry you."

I choke on a mouthful of iced coffee when it goes down the wrong pipe. "I know I move fast but I don't think we're at marriage yet, god."

Riley gives me a wicked grin. "How is it with Issy? That must be weird, right?"

"Not as weird as I was expecting. She's hilarious and very mature and this morning, she gave me a high five and welcomed me to the family."

"Oh, you are in so deep," Riley crows. "Love this for you. This is so cool, I'm so excited you're staying!"

"So am I." I'm not sure it's fully sunk in yet. I've spent so long wracked with anxiety about my future that without that dread, there's an empty space in my chest. "The only thing left to figure out is work, but Lou said she'll put in a good word at the golf club."

"Ew, no " Riley wrinkles her nose, shaking her head. "You don't wanna work there. It's full of entitled, elitist old men who'll leer at you and make suggestive comments and tell you to smile, princess." She sticks out her tongue in disgust. "You really wanna sit on a front desk welcoming rich pricks who have nothing better to do than stand around hitting little balls and talking about their wives like they hate them?"

"I didn't realize you had such strong opinions on the golf club." I tear my huge, soft cookie into pieces, each one smothered in chocolate chips. Julia makes them herself and they are to die for. "It can't be that bad."

"I worked there for a couple summers, before my parents opened this place, and I know we're talking about a decade ago but it's still all the same old men who play. They're just older and grosser now and most of them treat the female staff like something to ogle and make jokes about. Don't do it."

Back to square one. My shoulders slump. I stir my coffee, listening to the ice clink against the glass. "I don't have many choices, really. Fisher isn't exactly buzzing with work opportunities."

"Why don't you work here?"

"Here?" I straighten, hand falling from my straw. "Here is an option? Your parents are hiring?"

"They're always looking for staff, especially now that all the high schoolers and college kids who worked here in the summer have gone back to school," Riley says. "It's Mom, Dad and me at the moment, plus four permanent staff, but even in the off season we're open, like, fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. We need all the help we can get."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!"

"I could actually get a job here?"

Riley laughs and elongates the syllable when she says, "Ye-es. Hold on a sec." She leaps up from the table and disappears around the corner to the counter. She comes back a minute later with her mom.

"Hey, Charlotte. Good to see you, hon," Julie says, a dish cloth hanging from one hand. "Riley says you want to work here?"

My pulse ticks up at the mere potential. "I'd love to, if that's an option. This is, like, my dream job." Surrounded by coffee and people, working on my feet all day to use up my energy overflow, getting to work with people I already like – what's not to like?

Julia takes Riley's seat. "Okay, let me see. Got any barista experience?"

"Only with Lou's coffee machine," I joke, "but I'm a quick study."

"You like coffee?"

"Can't live without it."

"People skills?"

"I'd like to think so."

Riley laughs and says, "Mom, come on. You know she has people skills or we wouldn't have become friends so fast."

Julia taps her nails on the table, frowning like she's deep in thought. "How's your flexibility? Time wise?"

"I've got nothing else going on and I'm in Fisher indefinitely. Until Lou gets sick of me, I guess."

Julia chuckles. "Oh, honey, you're gonna be here for a long time. If you want the job, it's yours."

"No way."

"Yes way."

"Seriously? That's it?"

"That's it." Julia squeezes my shoulder. "I need staff. You need a job. I know you're a good egg – you're my daughter's friend and my best friend's girlfriend. So it will get awkward if you hurt either of them. Luckily the HR department is me, so."

"Mom!" Riley laughs and swats at her mom's arm. "She's kidding. I think."

"I don't plan on hurting anyone."

Julia spreads her arms. "Welcome to the team. You want to start next week? September first?"

"That's perfect." Oh my god. I can't believe it. Did that seriously just happen?

"Right. That's settled then. I've got customers waiting. Riley, hon, can you walk Charlotte through the rest?"

"Sure." Riley takes her seat. "There isn't much to it. Most of it is stuff you'll learn on the job. Um, let's see, technical stuff." She taps her finger on her chin. "Two weeks paid holiday a year. Sixteen dollars an hour. Free food and drinks. Health insurance. Permanent staff get 401(k) benefits after you've worked here for a year, I think. Dad's the details guy, he'll write it all up in your contract next week."

My mind is boggled by the onslaught of information. I have a job. I start next week. I get to do something I want to do, somewhere I want to be, surrounded by people I want to be around. The cafe is pleasantly full, the burble of chatter all around and the clink of spoons in mugs, the rumble of the coffee machine, but all I hear is static. I'm sitting here in my sweaty tank top, my shorts giving me a wedgie, and I just had an interview. I just got a job. What the actual fuck?

"Thank you," I manage to say at last. "Oh my god, thank you so much."

Riley grins, taps her coffee against mine. "Can't wait to work with you! Speaking of work, my shift starts in thirty minutes so I need to go take a shower and get dressed. Want me to drive you home?"

"No, I'm good." I not at my mostly full coffee, my half-eaten brownie. "I'll hang around here a bit longer. Honestly, Riley, I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. You might hate the job."

I shake my head. "I won't."

She leaves, and a few minutes later I get a text from Lou: are you at the cafe?

yup! emergency post-run caffeine!

Ok don't move, Issy and I are coming.

I don't move. I sit tight, coffee in my hand, for the ten minutes it takes for Lou and Issy to walk through the door. Issy goes to the counter with her mom's card in her hand; Lou comes to me.

"Good run?" She steals a corner of my cookie.

"Really good. You'll never guess what happened."

"Hmm. You saw a deer?"

"No. Well, yeah, I saw loads of deer, they're everywhere. But no – there's no need for you to pull a favor at the golf club, 'cause I got a job." I tell her everything that's happened in the last thirty minutes and she hugs me tight, kissing me even though I probably smell like an overflowing bag of garbage.

"Sorry, Charlie, I didn't even think to ask Jules. She should've been my first port of call," Lou says. She picks at another piece of my cookie and I slap her hand away, but not fast enough. She stuffs it into her mouth and gives me a shit-eating grin.

"Hey, hands off. I just ran eight miles, this is mine."

"I'll buy you another."

"You can buy me lunch."

"Done." She presses her finger to the cookie crumbs on the plate. "You and Issy were hanging out this morning, huh? I saw you guys out on the dock while I was teaching."

"Mmhmm. She told me she'll break every bone in my body if I ever hurt you."

Lou's mouth drops open "She did not."

"No, she didn't."

"I was going to say! That does not sound like my daughter. She may be a bit of a menace and she likes a debate but she's a pacifist at heart. She likes you, you know. You have the Isabella Lane seal of approval."

"I know." I take Lou's hand, slipping my fingers between hers, feeling the metal of her rings warmed by her skin. I love these hands, the smooth curves of her short nails, every line of every knuckle. "She welcomed me to the family."

"She did?" Lou's eyes glitter, brightening her whole face.

"She did. So no more nerves about me and your daughter getting on, 'cause we're just fine."

Lou sinks against me and lets out a sigh and says, "I can't tell you how much that means to me."

I lift her hand to my lips and kiss the backs of her fingers as Issy comes over with a tray of drinks and a couple more cookies. I steal half of Lou's and she lets me, her hand on my thigh beneath the table, as Issy launches into a long spiel about her college rival, a guy who keeps beating her by a couple points on each test. Except she mentions his hair a couple times too many for her irritation to be too deep. Lou and I share a look when Issy isn't watching.

When she goes to the bathroom, I nudge Lou and say, "What're the odds that next year she spends spring break with Fluffy McCurly Hair?"

Lou puts a hand to her chest. "She doesn't even realize she has a crush."

Issy comes back and launches straight into another story about her supposed rival, and Lou's fingers find mine, her gentle pressure a secret code when Issy harrumphs and says, "And his stupid hair is always in his stupid face."

*

I'm underwater with my eyes closed in a hot, deep bath long after the sun has gone down, after dinner in the garden, after Issy has gone to bed and Lou and I are alone. I don't hear the door open and I don't see Lou enter the bathroom until she says my name and the cadence of her voice reaches my ears through the soapy water.

I lurch up with a splash, water sloshing over the side. The water, pink from a fizzing bath bomb, stings my eyes, making me squint. "What?"

"Can I join you?" Lou asks. She's holding a couple of mugs that she sets down on the side of the bath. I run the faucet to wash my eyes out with clean water and when I blink up at her, nodding dumbly, she drops her dressing gown turns off the light and steps into the water. It rises above the overflow when she sits down, her smooth legs sliding alongside mine. She sinks lower, until the water reaches her shoulders and her knees are poking above the surface, her head rolled back over the edge of the tub.

I have never shared a bath before. This is a new sensation. Her soft, slippery skin, her feet either side of my hips, her nipples peeping through the bubbles, her borderline orgasmic sigh as the hot water envelops her.

"If you're going to have a night bath," she says, reaching for a box of matches on the ledge, "you need to do it right."

She strikes a match and lights a couple of candles, their flickering glow illuminating the room with a soft, romantic light, and passes me one of the mugs. The flames are reflected in her glasses when she holds my gaze, mug raised. "To you, and getting everything you wanted."

"I'll toast to that."

"Congratulations, Charlotte." She wiggles her toes, her feet scooting higher until she's teasing my waist. "I can't tell you how happy I am that you're not off to be a legal secretary in South Dakota."

I have to laugh at that because seriously, what was I thinking? I was miserable most of the time I was with my mom, in her house. I couldn't wait to be out of it every minute I was there so why I ever though it'd be feasible for me to move in with her is testament to my desperation.

"Jules will be lucky to have you working for her."

"That remains to be seen. I have never actually operated a coffee machine or had a customer-facing role so it could be a disaster and it'll be awkward because Julia will find it really hard to fire her best friend's girlfriend."

Lou gives me a funny look. Head tilted, a flash of curiosity in her eyes. "Does your brain ever stop?"

"No. Is that an option?"

She gives me that soft smile, even softer in this dim light. "Sometimes, things are just good. Like here. Now." Her free hand slips under the water and finds my ankle, her gentle touch trailing up to my knee and back down. "You came here looking for happiness and to escape insecurity. You did it, Charlie. Achievement unlocked. You can relax."

Her words are permission. A balm to the cracks I have carried with me all summer long. I sink under the water and hold my breath for ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. I blow out every bubble in my lungs until I am empty. When I come up for air, Lou is leaning forward, close enough to kiss. Our legs are a tangle underwater but her lips are still against mine and they taste of chamomile tea.

"If this is as good as it gets," she whispers, her lips grazing my cheek, "isn't that enough?"

I nod against her hand, her palm cupping my jaw. This is enough. This is more than enough.

*

if you've made it this far, thank you so much for coming along for the ride. the next chapter is the last one!

fun fact: issy is going to be a future protagonist for a book i plan to start either at the end of this year or the start of2024!