“So who was that guy earlier?” Frank asked after a moment, glancing over at me. “The one you clearly wanted to get away from?”

“Gideon,” I said. “My . . . ex, I guess.” I wasn’t sure I had the right to call him that, since we’d never been official. But he was really the closest thing I had to one.

“Oh yeah?” Frank asked, looking away from the road for longer than I would have advised. But somehow, in my slightly fuzzy state, it didn’t seem to bother me that much. “What happened?”

I shrugged, really not wanting to go into the whole thing—and not only because I had behaved in a way I wasn’t proud of. “We weren’t right for each other,” I said, realizing as I said it that it was true. I took a breath. I was starting to talk again before I’d even worked out what I was going to say. “You wouldn’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “Not without asking me.” Frank glanced over at me, baffled, but I didn’t stop to explain. “Of course you wouldn’t.” I could feel myself start to laugh at the thought of it. Frank wanting me to date someone like Sloane had was crazy, but if he did, I knew he’d be checking with me constantly, making sure I was okay with it. Frank drove me home when I had too much to drink, and scheduled horseback rides for me, and had seemed really alarmed that I’d never heard of a band called the Format, and made me a mix to correct it. He looked out for me. “But I wouldn’t do it now, either,” I said. I wouldn’t agree to it now.  The fact that I’d just let Sloane set me up with Gideon, barely asking any questions, seemed like it had happened a long time ago now.

“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?” Frank asked as he made the left onto the street that would take me home.

“I know,” I said. I thought about trying to explain it to him, but then just decided to let it go. “I’m sorry about Lissa.”

Frank glanced over at me, then back at the road again. He leaned forward slightly, and moonlight from the open roof spilled across his face, lighting him up. “It was okay,” he said slowly, like he was trying out these words, in this order, for the first time. “It turned out fine. And I had a great birthday.”

“Really?” I asked, a little doubtfully, thinking of Lissa bailing, of  Wanda’s cake, of having to drive me home.

“Really,” he said firmly. “I mean, I started off the day being serenaded by donut shop employees, so it was pretty fantastic.”

“I’m still just sorry about this—making you drive me on my birthday.” He glanced over at me, one eyebrow raised, and it occurred to me after a moment this wasn’t quite right. “Your birthday,” I said, trying to get my thoughts in line. “Drive me on your birthday.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” he said. “It’s the least I could do after you trekked down to New Jersey to get Lissa.”

“Not all the way,” I said. “She called me about halfway there.” Frank nodded, and I leaned back against the passenger-side door, curling my legs under me. I stretched my hand up through the open roof, feeling the warm night air rush around and through my fingers, looking up at all the stars that were visible tonight. In the dark car, with only the dashboard light, it looked like I could maybe reach them, if only I tried hard enough.

I leaned my head back against the window. My neck felt liquid and relaxed; despite what had just happened with Gideon, I was feeling somehow peaceful as I watched Frank driving me home. “You’re driving my car,” I said, shaking my head. “Nobody ever drives my car but me. It feels like I’m always driving other people around.”

“How am I doing?”

“Good,” I concluded after a moment. “It’s acceptable.”

Frank smiled at that, and when we reached my house, he pulled the car into the spot I always parked in, and as he killed the engine and handed my keys to me, it hit me that he knew where I parked my car. He knew where I lived, and didn’t need directions to bring me home.

We just sat in the car for a moment, looking ahead at my house, which was dark and quiet. Even all the cicadas seemed to have signed off for the night, and it was like the whole world was sleeping, the moon above out in full force and lighting everything up.

“Wait,” I said suddenly, turning to him.

He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere, Em.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, how are you going to get home?”

“I’ll walk,” he said. “It’s not that far. I do it every day, after all.”

“But that’s during the day,” I pointed out. “It’s nighttime now. There could be vagrants. Or coyotes.”

Frank just shook his head, still smiling. “I think I’ll be okay.” He got out of the driver’s seat, and I scrambled out of the passenger side to follow him.

“Well, then I’ll walk with you,” I said, and Frank stopped in the driveway and shook his head, turning to me.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, his voice patient. “Because then you’dhave to walk back here, and I’m not letting you do that in your present state.”

“Oh my god!” I said, maybe more loudly than I should have, since it seemed particularly loud against the quiet of the night, and Frank glanced toward my sleeping house. “ Present!I forgot to give it to you! Hold on.”

“Still not going anywhere,” he pointed out, and I could hear a laugh somewhere in his voice. I walked back to the car and yanked the wrapped package out from where I’d hidden it behind the front seat.

“Here,” I said, walking back to him and holding it out.

“You really didn’t have to do this,” he said, shaking his head.

“Of course I did,” I said, reaching out and giving his arm a small push. But it didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped, and my hand lingered a little too long on his arm before I got my thoughts working and pulled it back again. Somewhere in the more lucid part of my brain, I knew that was something I would have not ordinarily done, but it had already happened before that part of my brain could catch up to things.

Frank unwrapped the package slowly and carefully, and as he got closer to seeing what it was, I suddenly wondered if I’d chosen the wrong thing, or if he would think this was stupid. “No way,” he said as he pulled back the final corner and held up the CD I’d had to track down online. Curtis Anderson—Bootlegs and B-Sides.It was a comedy CD that had a tiny printing and hadn’t done well, but from everything I’d been able to glean, it was considered his best. I’d had to bid against anderfan2020 on eBay in a heated auction, but I’d gotten it in the end.

“I just thought,” I said, wishing I wasn’t so worried about his reaction, “that, you know, in a well-ordered universe, you would already have this. So . . .”

Frank shook his head and looked up at me. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“You can return it if you want,” I said, even as I said it, wondering if that would be possible. But I was pretty sure at the very least, I could probably sell it to anderfan2020.

“Are you kidding?” he said, turning it over to read the back. “This is fantastic. Thank you.”

I felt myself start to yawn, and Frank tucked the CD under his arm. “You should get some sleep,” he said, starting to head toward the road.

“I’ll walk you,” I insisted, falling into step next to him.

“Then I’m just going to have to walk you back,” he pointed out.

“Stop halfway?”

Frank looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Deal,” he said, and we walked together down the driveway, and turned left onto the road. Since it was totally deserted out, we could walk down the middle of the road, each of us taking one side of the center yellow line. The moonlight was so bright that it was casting our shadows onto the asphalt, and we walked in silence that felt totally comfortable, like maybe we didn’t need to talk just then.

I yawned again, and Frank stopped walking. “I’m walking you home now,” he said, changing direction.