“Scotch. It’s nice to see that not everything changes, after all,” Nancy said, and slid in the chair Alex had saved for her. They were sitting at their usual booth, theirs sides to the street, a cheerful lemon tree’s leaves peaking out from behind Alex’s ever athletic frame. Sports, Nancy thought, and the part they took in Alex’s life, was another thing that wouldn’t change.

Nancy shrugged of her suit jacket, draping it on the back of her chair much like Alex’s leather jacket had been on the other side of the table, and offered a smile. It was given back to her with extra warmth.

“I could say the same about your punctuality - 7:30 sharp, not a minute to spare or waste.” The tone was mocking, but the ghost of wrinkles at the corner of Alex’s eyes told her she was only teasing.

The lights in the restaurant were warm but dimmed. Car lights flashed by the window in a blur, the familiar scent of basil, thyme and garlic shielding them away from the street, and with the happy sounds of plates and glasses clinking, there was nothing to stop the feeling of comfort from inviting itself at their table. “Sorry we had to keep rescheduling. There’s been some complications with the new angle I’m trying to come with at work, and all this stuff with my family…”

She brushed a hand back through her hair, messing up the short, bright pink strands she’d recently decided to style in some sort of mohawk, but without the sides shaved off the way she’d had it her second year of college. Where most people seemed to progressively tame their looks with age, especially women, Alex seemed to be taking the same road backward, had been ever since their last year of high school. It was one of those things that Nancy never ceased to be charmed by about her.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad we finally found an evening that worked,” Nancy said with an easy smile and a wave of her hand. “It’s been a while.”

“Much too long.”

“How is your dad doing?”

Alex winced, then knocked back a few large gulps of her drink. When she answered, it was with tired eyes. “Not better. He keeps asking after Adrianna, but she won’t come before she’s done proving whatever ground-breaking discovery they just made. Doctors aren’t optimistic.”

There was nothing to say to that. Nancy gestured one of the waiters over (a new one, young and cheerful) and asked for today’s special and a bottle of wine. Red and dry, to go with the veal. Then she turned back toward Alex.

“How are you holding up?”

Alex sighed, the noise leaving her lips a weary song, and rubbed a hand to the back of her neck.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said, eyes lost on the glass wall to her right, watching but not really seeing the cars and people that passed by. “But I’m gonna be fine, at least in a couple of years. It’s harder on Celia, though. She loves him too much to accept it.” She paused, then added, like an afterthought: “They were supposed to get married this year.”

“Were you able to talk to him about his will?”

Alex brought her gaze back to Nancy, dropping the hand that had been cupping her chin. “Not yet,” she sighed, “he’s too stubborn. But I will. Soon,” she added in the face of Nancy’s frown, with a pointed look and a firmer voice.

Nancy hummed, letting the matter drop for the time being.

The waiter from earlier brought the wine then, and Alex finished the last drops of her scotch so he could take the glass away while Nancy made sure the wine wasn’t corked. It wasn’t, as far as she could tell, and the waiter poured them both a glass before leaving to attend to the other customers.

“So, what’s up with you?” Alex asked after he’d gone, leaning back in the chair. The shirt she was wearing with the sleeves pulled up to her elbows was dark grey, and snug in all the right places. She had worn it before - the back was embroidered with the head of a tiger roaring, surrounded with flowers. The imagery suited her almost better than the way the sleeves hugged her biceps.

“Melie’s show starts touring in two weeks, and I’m flying to Lisbon for the opening.”

Alex’s lax smile quickly morphed into a grin, eyes shining with honest excitement. “That’s gonna be something.” Nancy couldn’t stop her own grin from eating at her face, so she let it. “How long’s it been since you’ve been in the same place together? A month?”

“ Two. ” Nancy took a sip of her wine, tasting the idea of what she was going to say before it left her mouth for good. “But I’m bringing something to make up for it.”

“Oh?” Alex said, eyes taking on a glint as she leaned forward. Nancy nodded, barely refraining from blurting it all right away. “What is it?”

She lifted a hand, and pointed at her ring finger with the other. It took a second for Alex to understand what she meant, but when her eyes widened Nancy responded to her bewildered smile with an even brighter one of her own.

“Wow. You - You’re really… Wow. I’m honestly impressed. It’s about time you gathered your guts.”

“Shut up,” Nancy said, shaking her head but grinning all the same, “you of all people do not get to make fun of me. It took you months to ask your last boyfriend out.”

“Hey! Haru was intimidating.”

“Sure he was.”

“Just because he’s smaller than you doesn’t mean he’s not scarily cool. You didn’t meet him in person.”

“No, but I did talk to him on skype, and he seemed like a very normal human being.”

“Yeah, well. You couldn’t feel his aura through the screen.”

Nancy bit back a laugh. “ Aura? ”

“You know what I mean!” Alex protested, laughing. “Y’know he’s in Bangkok right now?”

“No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. What is he doing there?”

“Setting up an art show, I think. Or maybe he’s the one showing. Can’t remember,” she shrugged. “It has to do with art, anyway.”

Nancy snorted at that. “Well, yeah, it is Haru we’re talking about. I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”

“Very true,” Alex said, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. “Even when we were together, he spent more time sleeping in his studio than with me.”

Nancy smiled, then took a sip of her wine. “I still can’t believe you put up with it for six months, you barely even saw each other.”

“That’s why, actually. Hard to figure out anything about a relationship when the other party’s never around to give you their version of it,” she said with another roll of her eyes, but it was quickly followed by a smile.

“Fair point,” Nancy said, smiling. “You two were more friends than partners from the start, though. Have you met anyone else since then? You’ve been pretty quiet about this… aspect of your life, lately.”

Alex drank some of her wine, then shrugged. “Guess I’ve been busy with different kinds of stuff.”

Nancy raised an eyebrow at her, curious. “Is that all?”

“Not really.” Alex frowned. “I think I… I’ve been trying to focus on myself, lately, for the past year or so. So I’m kinda taking a break from this stuff until I’ve got it figured out.”

“Sounds wise,” Nancy nodded.

The waiter came back with their food a little while later, and the conversation flowed over their dinner, a steady, familiar stream that tied them together, cutting them both out of the rest of the world the same way it used to when they were teenagers falling in love for the first time. Not much had changed, other than as time went on, the large tree in Redhill Park had become a secluded booth at Nino’s.

Their relationship hadn’t changed much - or it had, for a time, because they had been in love once and it never took much for the pain to make a hole out of a crack, but it had not been long before both of their paths had converged again, tied together as they were in more manners than one. They still talked for hours about nothing and everything all at once, every word a confession in the warmth of their cocoon.

They had been together for a decade, and dated all through the first half. They were each other’s first love, and the imprint they had left on each other was deeper than a breakup could reach. It had started at the beginning of their senior year of high school when Alex had cut her hair so short she’d given all of her hair ties to her cousins, and in the way Nancy had picked up running as a way to blow off steam when she’d started college. It was in the habits they’d mirrored, and the secrets they shared. They had started off in life with their hands tied together, and neither of them was planning on letting go anytime soon.

They were best friends because they had been something else.

______________

They had just started on the dessert when Nancy realized she’d forgot to ask about someone. Or someones . She twirled what little wine was left in her glass, waiting for Alex to finish her tale about how one of her colleague had climbed five stories of their building barehanded for a dare. It was quite impressive, both in idiocy and in skill. Speaking about idiocy… Nancy waited for their laughter to die out.

“How are our star-struck fools doing?”

If Alex looked surprised at the sudden change of topics, it didn’t show. She groaned, eyes rolling before Nancy’d even finished speaking.

“As oblivious and infuriating as ever. Elliot won’t admit he’s falling all over again, and Sasha keeps trying to wiggle his way back into his life without even realizing he’s doing it.”

“Some things just don’t change,” Nancy laughed, thinking about the conversations she’d had with the both of them since their unpredicted reunion a few months back.

Alex snorted. “Just two weeks ago, Elliot freshened his haircut one day after Sasha’d told him it was getting too long. He denies the influence, of course.”

“Helpless fools,” Nancy said around a laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually. They have to have grown up since then, if only a little.”

“May your unwavering optimism never fail you. Watching them tiptoe around each other like this is like high school all over again.” Alex made a show of her exasperation by near-groaning the last sentence. Nancy couldn’t help but smile.

“Give them time,” she said, nudging Alex’s leg with her foot. “They haven’t seen each other in six years. It’s going to take a while before they can get used to each other again.”

Alex sighed, a long, drawn-out sound as she slumped back in her chair. “It didn’t take us nearly that long,” she mumbled. “Or general awkwardness.”

“You know it’s not the same,” Nancy said, thinking back to the open, if strained, conversation they’d had a little more than five years prior. Although painful on both parts, it had been a mutual decision. They’d let each other drift apart afterward, needing the time to heal and the distance to grieve, but they’d circled right back to each other before long. They had tried going back to how things were for a few months, which had had its fair share of awkward, but it hadn’t taken too long for the both of them to realize that this book of their relationship was definitely over.

Sasha and Elliot’s breakup had been… different. Messy. They’d lashed out and said things neither of them believed, then cut all and every ties they could. But the book wasn’t over yet.

“I know,” Alex sighed. “Doesn’t make it any less aggravating.”

“Then think about how it must be for them. They have become as much strangers to each other as they aren’t. It can’t be easy sorting through their feelings.”

Alex huffed, annoyed, but something in the crease of her eyebrows told Nancy she knew Nancy was right. “Well, they should be sorting it out like adults, not blushing schoolboys,” she grumbled, making Nancy laugh.

“Because you’re so much more emotionally mature than they are,” she said, grinning from one ear to the other. Alex kicked her shin under the table, struggling to look betrayed around her own smile.

“Hey! I’m a perfectly functional adult. I know how to deal with my emotions.”

Nancy shot her a look. “Right.”

“Okay, okay,” Alex laughed, admitting defeat, “it’s a work in progress. But I’m getting better.”

“I know.” Nancy grinned at her, and she grinned back.

They may have fallen out of love, but their complicity hadn’t given way one bit.

Life was a mess of a road, and too unpredictable to be really prepared for anything, but they didn’t regret any step of the way.