“Nico!” Cait cried as soon as joined them, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Cait!” he replied, hugging her back briefly before prying her off of him.

“You’ll never guess what one of Adam’s students did this time!” Juliana told him with a twinkle in her eye.

James folded his arms as if daring Nicolas to make a big deal out of him being there or to ask him to leave the conversation. Instead, Nicolas just smiled at him and then turned back to Juliana.

“Alright,” he said, “I’ll bite. What did Adam’s students do this time?”

“Tell him the story, Adam,” Juliana said, elbowing him.

“You tell him; you’re a much better story-teller,” Adam replied, elbowing her back.

“But it’s your story,” Juliana said, this time giving him a little push.

Adam just grinned back and gave her a giant shove. Juliana fell against the table, laughing.

Will James and I ever be able to have that kind of friendly relationship, or things always going to be awkward now that we broke up?

As if he were having the same thought, James looked right back at him. Nicolas blushed and looked away.

Once Adam began his tale of how one of his students in a fourth-grade class he was long-term subbing for had started replacing all of his pens one by one with pens that wrote in invisible ink, they all fell back into their usual rhythm. Adam talked, Juliana butted in with jokes, Cait suggested the nuclear option whenever appropriate (and very often when inappropriate), and he and James listened in comfortable silence. It almost felt like none of them had ever left.

“And then his parents came in for the parent-teacher conference, and you know who they were?” Adam asked.

“Your new girlfriend and her trophy husband?” Juliana guessed.

“Your new sugar daddy and his beard?” James guessed.

“Your parents who forgot to tell you about your recently-discovered, long-lost brother?” Cait guessed.

“No, no, and no,” Adam said, and then paused for dramatic effect (because no matter how much he protested otherwise, Adam was the best storyteller in the group). “It was the principal and the chief of police!”

Juliana threw back her curls and roared with laughter despite having heard the story before.

“Of course, it was police corruption this whole time,” James deadpanned, and Nicolas smiled remembering all the trouble James used to get into because people could never tell when he was joking.

“How did you punish him?” Cait asked.

“I didn’t,” Adam said. “I was going to bring it up in the parent-teacher conference, but then I chickened out.”

“Bock, bock, bock,” James clucked, flapping his elbows like wings.

Cait clicked her tongue and shook her head. “I would have made him do all his assignments in dull crayon for a month.”

“I’m pretty sure that would be an abuse of power,” Adam pointed out.

“Yes, and?” Cait asked.

Nicolas laughed, and realized through the dull ache in his chest, that he had really missed these people.

Just then some familiar notes started to play in the background.

Cait must have recognized the look on Nicolas’ face because she smiled and said, “remember when this was you guys’ song?”

The corner of James’ mouth twitched up in reply, and Nicolas was flooded with memories of dancing together at school dances and in friends’ basements and in the park that one time Cait’s band got to play covers at a town picnic.

James was standing so close to him, looking into his eyes, and smiling, and Nicolas was riding high on the nostalgia and the champagne he had earlier, so against his better judgment he asked, “do you want to dance?”

For a second, it looked like James was going to say yes, but then the smile fell off his face and he said, “You should probably go look for your girlfriend. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”