“What boot?” Boomer asked.

“Lily’s,” Dov explained.

“You met Lily!” Boomer nearly exploded.

“No, I did not meet Lily,” I replied.

“Who’s Lily?” Priya asked. I hadn’t even seen her appear in the doorway.

“A girl!” Boomer answered.

“Well, not really a girl,” I corrected.

Priya raised an eyebrow. “A girl who’s not really a girl?”

“She’s a drag queen,” Dov said.

“Lily Pad,” Yohnny chimed in. “She does the most amazing version of ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’ It reduces me to tears every time.”

“Tears,” Dov said.

“And Dash has her boot!” Boomer said.

“Hi, Dash.”

Here she was. Over Priya’s shoulder. A lit le hidden in the hallway light.

“Hi, Sofia.”

Now, when I would have loved an interruption from Boomer, he fell silent. Everyone fell silent.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too.”

It was like the full amount of time we’d been apart was falling between each sentence. There, on the front stoop, it was months of us looking at each other. Her hair was longer, her skin a lit le darker. And there was something else, too. I just couldn’t gure it out. It was something in her eyes. Something in the way she was looking at me that wasn’t like the way she’d looked at me before.

“Come in,” Priya said. “There are some people here already.”

It was peculiar—I wanted So a to hold back, to wait for me, like she would have when we’d been going out. But instead she led us into the party, with Priya, Boomer, Dov, and Yohnny between us.

Inside, it was hardly a rager. Priya’s parents were not the type to leave the apartment while their daughter had a party. And they were of the mind that the strongest beverage of ered should be sugared soda, and only that in moderation.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” Priya was saying to me. “And that you’re not in Sweden. I know Sofia would have been disappointed.” There was no reason for Priya to impart this information to me, so I immediately suspected there was much more to it than was being said. So a would have been disappointed. Did that mean she really wanted to see me? That she would have been crushed if I hadn’t shown?

Was this in fact the reason Priya had thrown the party in the first place?

I knew this was quite a leap to make, but when I looked at So a again, I found some footing on the other side. She was laughing at something Dov was saying to her, but she was looking at me, like he was the distraction and I was the conversation. She gestured with her head over to the drinks counter. I moved to meet her there.

“Fanta, Fresca, or Diet Rite?” I asked.

“I’ll have a Fanta,” she said.

“Fan-tastic,” I replied.

As I got some ice and poured some soda, she said, “So how have you been?”

“Good,” I said. “Busy. You know.”

“No, I don’t know,” she said, taking the plastic cup from my hand. “Tell me.” There was a slight challenge in her voice.

“Well,” I said, pouring myself a Fresca, “I was supposed to go to Sweden, but that had to be canceled at the last minute.”

“Yeah, Priya told me.”

“This soda has a massive amount of carbonation, doesn’t it?” I gestured to where the Fresca was foaming over. “I mean, when this all set les down, I’ll end up with, like, a demitasse of soda. I’m going to be pouring this drink all night.” I took a sip just as Sofia said, “Priya also told me you were studying the joys of g*y sex.” I took a sip just as Sofia said, “Priya also told me you were studying the joys of g*y sex.” Fresca. Up. My. Nose.

After I was done coughing, I said, “I’ll bet she didn’t mention the French pianism, did she? I’ll bet she left that out entirely.”

“You are studying French penises?”

“Pianism. Good lord, don’t they teach you anything in Europe?”

This was a joke, but it didn’t come out sounding entirely like a joke. As a result, So a was mi ed. And if American girls make being mif ed a sweet-and-sour emotion, European girls always manage to add an undercurrent of murder to it. At least in my limited experience.

“I can assure you,” I told her, “that while I believe g*y sex to be a beautiful, joyful thing, I do not think that I myself would nd it particularly joyful, and thus my reading about its joys was all a part of a greater pursuit.” Sofia looked at me archly. “I see.”

“Since when do you have an arch expression?” I asked. “There is a certain feistiness in your voice, too, that heretofore has not been present. It’s extremely at ractive, but not really the Sofia I knew before.”

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” she replied.

“WHAT?”

She gestured behind me, where there were at least half a dozen people waiting to get some soda.

“We’re in the way,” she said. “And I have a present for you.”

The path to the bedroom was not a clear one. It felt like every two steps we took, someone stopped So a to welcome her back, to ask her how Spain was, to tell her how amazing her hair looked. I hovered on the side, in the boyfriend position once more. And it felt just as awkward now as it had when I’d really been her boyfriend.