As he poured a glass for each of us, we heard a series of knocks on my door.

I stood up and opened the door for Matt.

“Got the room, Philip,” he said, with a smile as he took my hand and we both walked to the outdoor seating area.

When we got to the small table on which Philip and I had fixed things up, he let go of my hand and accepted the glass of wine that Philip was extending to him.

“To Harley,” he said as he raised his glass towards me.

“To good friends,” I responded and clinked my glass against his and Philip’s.

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After we got halfway through the food they’d brought and consumed the bottle of wine that Philip had uncorked, Matt and Philip turned to look at me expectantly during a lull in the conversation.

I set my glass down on the table, looked at each of them in turn and said quietly, “Aerin and I have fallen in love. May seem all of a sudden, but it’s a very real thing to me. And she says to her, too.”

“That’s great, Harley,” Matt said simply while Philip grinned broadly and almost simultaneously, “There. Not so hard was it?”

“Thanks, Philip, Matt…” I said, and tried but failed to keep a smile down when I thought about Aerin, and how much I loved her.

“Never seen you glow like that when you’ve talked about or been with any of your boyfriends…” Philip added.

O-o-o-o-kay that was a relief.

Good start but there was much more that I had to tell them. Philip and Matt didn’t press. So we started to chat about Matt’s case, and the possible outcomes my team and I could help him achieve without a trial, ideally, as we started on the next bottle of wine they’d brought and started to polish off the rest of the appetizers and sandwiches from the deli. The easy exchange was a way for me to get my thoughts together, and I knew that they knew it. At one point, however, they started to prod me about what had precipitated “my flight to the desert,” as Philip put it. It’s time.

As I rearranged yet again the outline of thoughts I was preparing to share, Matt stood up from the lounge chair he’d been leaning back against, stretched his arms up and then lifted his to look up at the sky, which had begun to darken from the faint pink-orange of dusk.