Ezra and Nico are side by side at the bar, laptops closed. Nico looks up long enough to say "hello, Devin" with the precise politeness of a man who learned social interaction from a business etiquette manual, and Ezra raises his tea in greeting.
"Sit anywhere," Silas says.
I sit at the bar, next to Toby, because Toby is reading and that makes him safe. Silas sits beside me, close, his knee against mine under the bar.
Jason brings out the food. It's, there's no other word for it, extraordinary. Some kind of pasta with roasted tomatoes and basil and fresh mozzarella and bread that's still warm and a salad that I wouldn't normally eat except it has this dressing that makes me understand why people eat salad.
"Oh my god," I say after the first bite.
"Right?" Robin grins. "Jason's food is a spiritual experience."
"It's just pasta," Jason says, but he's smiling.
The meal is loud and chaotic and nothing like the quiet world Silas and I have built in the library and the café. People talk over each other. Vaughn and Knox argue about something garage-related. Robin narrates everyone's behavior like a sports commentator. Ezra and Nico have a quiet conversation that sounds like a foreign language. Toby and I fall into a conversation about romance novels that goes deep fast, tropes we love, tropes we hate, the eternal debate about whether instalove is lazy writing or aspirational fantasy.
"Aspirational," I say firmly. "Nobody reads romance for realism."
"Thank you!" Toby says. "I've been saying this for years."
"Toby once made Knox read a romance novel," Silas tells me. "Knox finished it in one sitting and then didn't speak for three hours."
"It was emotionally complex," Knox says from behind the bar.
"It was calledThe Duke's Reluctant Bride," Robin adds.
"The title is irrelevant to the thematic content."
I laugh. Actually laugh, out loud, in a room full of people I barely know, and it feels like something I haven't done in so long I'd forgotten the mechanics.
Silas's hand finds my knee under the bar. Squeezes once.I see you. I'm glad you're here.
I put my hand over his. Squeeze back.Me too.
After dinner, we help clean up. I dry dishes while Silas washes, and we work in the same easy silence we have in the library. Jason packs leftovers into a container and hands it to me without comment.
"For later," he says. "The pasta reheats well. Add a splash of water before microwaving."
"You don't have to —"
"I always make too much. Silas will confirm."
"He makes too much," Silas confirms. "It's pathological."
"It's generous," I say, taking the container. "Thank you."
Jason gives me a long look. The kind that says he knows more than he's letting on, about the shelter, about the pastries Robin packs too many of, about the economy of a life where homemade leftovers are a luxury.
"Anytime," he says. "Saturday dinner is every week. You're welcome whenever."
* * *
Silas walks me home. The evening is cool, the streetlights on, the sky dark.
"Your family's nice," I say.
"They're a lot."
"Good lot. The kind of lot that makes too much pasta and argues about romance novels."