Chapter Text
They met for coffee once a week at their usual spot – a cozy hole-in-the-wall with cracked leather couches, overgrown plants hanging from the ceiling, and mismatched mugs that made the place feel less like a café and more like they were meeting at a friend's house.
Natalie shouldered her bag as it slipped against her leather jacket. She was late.
She felt a little disheveled. The wind had worked its fingers through her hair, knotting the ends. It was getting long again – she'd need to cut it soon. Her cheeks were pink, flushed from hurrying from the subway and weaving her way through the crowd of early morning commuters.
She pushed her way through the café door.
Lottie looked up the second she stepped inside, like she'd been watching the entrance. Her eyes softened when they landed on Natalie. She didn't speak right away, just smiled and tilted her head toward the empty seat beside her.
Waiting in front of the seat, like Natalie hadn't been late at all, was her usual – an oat flat white, foam just the way she liked it. She knew without tasting it that it would have two sugars.
"Hey," Lottie said, soft and warm.
Natalie gave a sheepish smile as she collapsed into the seat. "Sorry, I'm late – I got distracted. Some guy on the train was yelling about lizard people and Jesus. His argument was almost half convincing."
Lottie laughed, but her gaze lingered on Natalie's face like she was searching for something. "You okay?"
Natalie shrugged, blowing on her coffee. "I'm here now, aren't I?"
Lottie smiled faintly and didn't press further.
"Besides," Nat said, lifting her mug to her lips with a grin. "I knew you'd order for me."
"You get the same thing every time," Lottie said, her voice laced with amusement and something almost like affection.
"Nah," Natalie replied with a grin. "I'm just lucky you love me enough to remember my order."
Lottie bit her lip and looked down at her mug, tracing the rim with a fingertip.
From across the table, Shauna looked up from her phone, fixing Natalie with a look of unmistakable disapproval. "You're late."
Natalie rolled her eyes. "Sorry. Your mom's just so clingy in the mornings – made it really hard to sneak out."
Shauna's eyes narrowed, her lips curling into a practised sneer. "Real mature, Natalie."
Without another word, she went back to tapping away on her phone – probably handling some crisis for a client at the PR firm she worked for. Damage control, cover-ups and spinning stories were all things Shauna thrived on. Natalie hated to admit it, but Shauna was good at what she did. Scarily good.
Nat leaned back in her chair, moving her gaze past Shauna and locking eyes with Van. "Hot water's out again, by the way."
Van frowned. "I thought Ben was sending someone to fix it?"
Natalie shrugged. "Yeah, well, if you'd been home the last four nights instead of holed up at your girlfriend's, you'd know he didn't."
Tai, seated beside the redhead, flushed slightly. Van rolled their eyes and shot Nat the finger.
"I'll follow it up," Nat added, hands raised in mock surrender. "Just trying to let the man enjoy his honeymoon."
Ben Scott had been Van and Nat's college soccer coach. Stern but fair, he'd developed a soft spot for both of them over the years. It wasn't the kind of favouritism that made anyone else in the team roll their eyes. It was something quieter, more paternal. A fatherly sort of affection that had once made Natalie uneasy.
At first, she hadn't known what to do with that kind of care – so foreign it felt like it couldn't be real. But over time, she let herself lean into it and allowed someone to give a damn about her for once.
A week before graduation, Ben had pulled them aside and offered them a place – an apartment above a small shopfront in an older building his fiancé, now husband, owned. The offer had come almost shyly like he wasn't sure they'd say yes.
They had – after making sure he wasn't pulling some twisted prank on them.
The place was a little rough around the edges with exposed brick walls, creaky floorboards and temperamental heating. 'Character, ' Van had called it with a grin.
Nearly a year in, they were still there – paying rent on time, keeping the place relatively clean and racking up no more noise complaints than any other twenty-something-year-olds.
And still, sometimes, it felt surreal to Natalie. That she had a front door that was hers and a key that unlocked it. That she didn't have to worry about whether the lights would turn on in the morning because the power bill had gone to booze. That she didn't have to tiptoe around whatever boyfriend her mom had brought home that week.
It wasn't perfect. But it was theirs.
And for two kids who spent years living in survival mode, always waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under them, it was everything.
"How are the newlyweds?" Laura Lee asked brightly from the other end of the table.
"Deeply, deeply in love," Nat said with mock disgust. "They sent me a whole album of photos from some cathedral in Spain. I'll forward it to you, Laura Lee. You'll lose your mind."
"Please do," the blonde beamed, already digging out her phone.
Their group of friends had been born out of a French study group they'd thrown together in their freshman year at NYU.
Van and Nat had landed in the class entirely by accident. They'd missed the elective sign-up window for a core unit they needed thanks to a night spent getting high on the fire escape of their dorm, basking in the disbelief that they'd actually made it out of Wiskayok. By the time they remembered to log in, Introduction to French was the only class with seats left.
They'd groaned about it for days, but as athletes on scholarships, they couldn't afford to fail a class – not without risking their game time or their funding. So, they showed up. Most of the time.
They learnt that Jackie had enrolled because she'd binge-watched a French crime drama over the summer and decided she liked the sound of the language. Shauna signed up because Jackie did. Mari had taken one look at the professor and decided he was hot enough to make the semester bearable.
Tai had chosen the class with a purpose – at the time, she had wanted a career in politics, maybe diplomacy, and figured French would be good on her resume. Lottie hadn't chosen at all; her father had enrolled her, just like he had for every other class, citing something about her 'future in international business.' Laura Lee said she signed up because she wanted to be able to read the Bible in at least three other languages, and French seemed like a good start.
Misty's reason was harder to pin down, but it had something to do with the guillotine and revolutionary France. When Nat asked her about it, Misty had launched into an overly detailed, slightly gruesome, wide-eyed monologue that made her instantly regret bringing it up in the first place.
As for Akilah, Gen, Mel and Robin – Natalie had never gotten around to finding out why they took the class and by the time she thought to ask, it felt like it was too late.
They all barely scraped through, and no one went on to take Intermediate French the following semester. But somehow, despite it all, the group had stuck.
Years later, now graduated, they were still all in each other's lives. Deeply tangled. The kind of friendship built on late-night cramming sessions, skipped classes, hungover breakfasts a diners around the city, and the kinds of petty arguments only twenty-something-year-olds can have and still bounce back from.
It was a ragtag group – not exactly people Natalie would have guessed she'd wake up early once a week for. But somehow, they'd become her people.
Conversation buzzed around her. Jackie was venting about her boss again – something about him being a total creep. It was making Shauna look murderous.
Van was mid-rant, passionately explaining why Paris is Burning was one of the most underrated queer films of all time, gesturing wildly between sips of their matcha latte. Tai watched on, with a soft smile and quiet affection in her eyes, chin resting in her palm.
Mari was already halfway through her second coffee and speaking faster and louder than usual. Beside her, Akilah kept one eye on her book and the other on Mari, reaching out every so often to place a calming hand on her thigh, a silent reminder to breathe.
Natalie joined in where she could, laughing, sipping, nodding along – but her focus kept drifting sideways to Lottie.
She was stirring her coffee in slow, absent circles, not drinking it. The spoon clinked against the inside of her mug in a soft rhythm, like she was keeping time with a song no one else could hear. Her gaze wasn't on anyone at the table. Not really on anything at all. Fixed on a middle distance, eyes far away, like she was halfway inside a dream.
Natalie nudged her shoulder gently. "You alright?"
Lottie blinked like she was only just remembering where she was. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just spaced out."
She offered Nat a lopsided smile.
It was always hard to tell with Lottie. Whether she was just drifting off like she sometimes did, lost in the clouds of her mind, or if it was something more.
The more.
The more that came with nights where Lottie wouldn't sleep. Nights where she would pace the floor until sunrise, whispering to things no one else could see. Nights where Nat wouldn't sleep either, not because she couldn't, but because she was afraid of what might happen if she didn't keep watch.
The more that was enough to pull Lottie's parents back from their endless overseas business trips, only to whisk her away weeks at a time and return her quieter and duller at the edges. As if they'd smoothed her over, added a fresh coat of paint, tied her up with a bow and declared her fixed.
That more scared Natalie.
But she didn't ask. Not here.
Instead, she let herself sink back into the worn chair, letting the hum of conversation wash over her. She didn't say anything – just shifted slightly to the side, close enough to feel the warmth of Lottie's arm against hers.
Natalie couldn't quite remember when Lottie had become her best friend. There was no clear moment, no defining shift – no one saying, this is where it begins.
One day, she had looked around and realised Lottie was simply there, folded into her life like she'd always been part of it. With her soft brown eyes and offhand comments that lingered somewhere between cryptic and poetic. Lottie, who, tall and lanky, moved with an awkwardness as if she was still growing into herself or perhaps trying to make herself smaller than she was. Lottie, with her little quirks and habits, things others found odd, Natalie found endearing.
To Nat, Van was different – more like a sibling than anything else. Affectionately annoying, unwaveringly constant, stuck to her like gum on the bottom of her shoe. They spoke a language that didn't need words, the kind of understanding that only two kids from broken homes and shitty parents could share.
"Alright, Halloween weekend," Van announced, clapping their hands like a kindergarten teacher trying to get the attention of their class. "Everyone take it off. No shifts. No trips out of town. No family events. And absolutely no funerals for your cousin's great aunt's neighbour's sister."
Van shot a pointed look at Mel, who blinked innocently and took a long sip from her iced latte.
"No excuses," Van finished firmly.
Tai raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Halloween's still, like, a month away."
"Exactly," Van said, already tapping something into their phone. "Babe, you know how much I love Halloween. And let's be real – you guys are flaky as hell. I'm just trying to get ahead of the bullshit."
Misty, who had been relatively quiet for most of the morning, piped up. "I'm thinking of going as Edward Jenner."
The table turned to look at her.
Jackie shot upright, reaching for her phone. "Wait – does Kris Jenner have a secret kid I don't know about?"
"No, not that Jenner," Misty said, sounding mildly offended. "Edward Jenner. The guy who developed the smallpox vaccine?"
Jackie wrinkled her nose. "Okay… but how is that scary?"
Misty pushed her glasses higher up her nose, voice oddly chipper. 'Well, imagine if he never invented it. Millions of people dead. Society crumbles. Anarchy in the streets. People fighting for survival. That's pretty terrifying, don't you think?"
Mari let out a dramatic groan and dropped her head into her hands.
"Jesus, Misty. I can't be seen at a party with someone dressed like a dusty old science corpse. Most of my Instagram followers still think I'm cool."
"History is scary," Misty continued, completely unbothered. "If we don't learn from it, we're doomed to repeat it."
She grinned brightly, oblivious to the shadow of unease she had cast over the table.
Van pinched the bridge of their nose and exhaled slowly like they were appealing to a higher power for patience.
"I don't care if you dress up as a history textbook, a sexy sandwich, or a fucking IRS agent – just make sure you're free that weekend."
"Well, I'm going as Jack from The Shinning," Shauna said flatly, not looking up from her phone.
Natalie snorted. "Your commitment to flannel is commendable."
Shauna flicked her gaze up from her screen, narrowing her eyes dangerously. She gave Natalie a single, unamused finger.
"No, you're not," Jackie protested, her voice rising slightly. "We can't make a couple costume out of The Shining."
"Fine," Shauna replied with a shrug. "I'll be Hannibal Lector, then."
Jackie pouted, crossing her arms.
"I can't work with The Silence of the Lambs either, Shauna."
"Clarice?" Van offered.
Jackie huffed and threw herself back in her chair dramatically, like a toddler who had just been told no for the first time.
Despite her head bent low, eyes still fixed on her phone, Natalie could see the corners of Shauna's mouth curling into a small, amused smirk. Everyone at the table knew Shauna's resistance was all for show. In the end, she'd wear whatever Jackie wanted her to – because when it came to Jackie, Shauna had never really learned how to say no.
"Okay," Lottie announced suddenly, pushing back her chair. "I have to go."
Natalie frowned. "Really? But I just got here."
Lottie laughed, already pulling on her jacket. "Some of us work nine to five, Natalie."
"Tragic," Nat murmured, mock-pouting. "The hamster wheel of corporate life claims another victim."
Lottie rolled her eyes.
The thing was, Lottie didn't have to work. Her family's money made sure of that. But after graduation, she'd taken a job at the New York branch of her father's company.
She'd told Natalie she didn't mind it. Said it was good to have a routine. Said it was better than feeling like she was floating.
At the time, Natalie had laughed it off. Assumed it was another one of Lottie's cryptic little metaphors. Because who chooses to work when they don't have to?
Now, she understood.
Lottie needed something to hold onto. A desk. A diary with meetings and deadlines. A lanyard with her name printed on it. She needed something solid, ordinary and mundane. Something to ground her.
Natalie watched as Lottie made her way to the door. Just before slipping out, she paused, glancing back over her shoulder, like she knew Nat would still be watching, and gave a dorky little wave. Then she was gone.
Conversation filtered back in, settling into the space Lottie had left behind.
"So apparently, it's serious."
Natalie blinked, attention shifting back to the group. "What is?"
Mari sighed with mild impatience. "The girl Lottie's been seeing."
Natalie's fingers curled a little tighter around her half-empty mug, the dull warmth bleeding into her palm.
"She hasn't told me much," Mari continued, lazily waving her spoon. "But I heard from Gen who saw them at that new Italian place on Earl. Said they looked very into each other and that there were, you know, vibes."
Natalie stared blankly, her brain scrambling to catch up. There was a faint, high-pitched ringing in her ears.
"They're seeing each other again this Friday," Mari added breezily, as though she were talking about the weather. "At that wine bar. The one Mel worked at over the summer."
From beside her, Mel grumbled at the memory.
Natalie stared down into her mug. The coffee churned in her stomach, heavy and sour, like it was curdling.
Around her, the world carried on.
Mari was still talking. Jackie threw her hands up at something – to protest, maybe. Misty seemed to chime in, but Mari rolled her eyes and steamrolled right over her.
Natalie couldn't latch onto a single word. It was all frayed and muffled and distant like she was listening from underwater.
The dull ringing in her ears grew louder, the only thing she could hear now.
Then, a voice cut through the noise in her head, warped and distorted. It took a long, disorientating second for Natalie to realise it was her own.
"Lottie's seeing someone?"
The table went quiet. Eyes shifted to her.
Mari blinked, clearly thrown.
"Really?" She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing slightly, like a cat zeroing in on its prey – her prey being more gossip. "Huh. I just assumed you would have known."
Natalie hadn't known.
Because Lottie hadn't told her.
She could feel the eyes of the group on her, heavy with curiosity, maybe even pity. It was enough to make her skin crawl.
Across the table, Van caught her eye. Their expression was soft, a raised eyebrow silently asking, You good?
The ringing was creeping its way back into her ears. Natalie gave them a tiny nod.
Lottie was seeing someone, and she hadn't bothered to tell Natalie. Not a passing word, not even a hint.
The realisation hit her like a slap across the face, a stinging betrayal etched onto her skin.
Natalie had always told Lottie everything – every stupid crush, the even stupider ex-boyfriends, the messy hookups, and the even messier breakups. Lottie had always listened. Sometimes, she'd roll her eyes, but she listened. Natalie had always turned to her, and Lottie had always been there.
She had thought Lottie would trust her to do the same.
Natalie's jaw clenched so hard that it ached. She hadn't realised they were keeping parts of their lives hidden from each other.
A surge of bitterness filled her chest. If Lottie wasn't going to be honest with her – if she was going to start hiding things from her – fine. Natalie wouldn't ask. She'd find out on her own.
Her eyes scanned the faces around her. If she was going to get answers, she'd need someone nosy enough to help her.
She knew exactly who to ask.
___
Later, outside in the mid-morning sun, as everyone began to go their separate ways, Natalie caught Jackie by the shoulder.
"What are you doing Friday night?"
Jackie blinked. A few feet away, Shauna hovered impatiently.
"I was probably going to –"
"Clear your schedule."
Jackie raised a brow. "Uh… okay?"
Natalie gave a satisfied nod and turned on her heel, stalking off towards where Van was waiting.
"You gonna tell me what this is about?" Jackie called after her.
"Nope."