They manage to get seats at a place on Denman. Callum’s buzzed enough that he doesn’t know what it’s called, but Andy led them in. The five of them manage to find a table, squeezing in shoulder-to-shoulder. Callum finds himself facing across from Jane. He tries to strike up a conversation with her, which is difficult because the tables are so wide and the bar so loud.
            “How’s your new place?” he asks. Jane and Andy recently moved in together.
            “What?” Jane says.
            He repeats himself.
            “Oh, it’s fine,” she says. We have a few little–” and the rest is lost as the beat swells. The bar is dimly lit, like most bars. Waitresses glide back and forth in that practiced, quick calm that any good server has mastered. Callum likes to watch people at work. He watches the bar patrons, trying to pick up on the little gestures that people give, signals when the music’s too loud and you’ve drank enough and you want to tell someone how you feel with your body instead of words. At the same time, he feels Emi’s bare leg against his. It’s smooth and sticky. They’ve been outside all day at the beach. Everyone is sweaty, tugging shirts from bodies. Callum tries to focus in on a conversation. Andy and Manny are debating the merits of various coffee-making techniques. They all work at the same coffee shop. Callum can tell the difference between good coffee and bad, but it doesn’t go much farther than that.
            “French press is the best,” Manny says. He’s tall and black, with a high fade and a cosmopolitan accent that lilts across Europe. He just started at the cafe. “Filters absorb too much. The purity is retained in press. It still percolates in your cup.”
            Andy nods, crossing his arms. “Yeah, but there’s not as much precision as with a pour over or…”
            Andy looks like he values precision. He’s fit and handsome, and his hair is perfectly pomaded. An elegant black tattoo sleeve shows under his tee-shirt. Callum watches him. The way he crosses his arms and considers Manny’s question. The way he drinks his beer, somehow in perfectly-sized sips. Callum doesn’t think he’s ever seen perfectly-sized sips before, but Andy has mastered them. Unconsciously, or maybe a little consciously, Callum adjusts himself, sitting a little more like Andy, who has his arm casually draped over Manny’s shoulders. He wants to brush his hair into a perfect part, but it’s too long.
            “You’ve worked at the cafe for a while right?” Jane asks.
            Callum says he has. Nearly two years now. Time flies when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck.
            “You must like it then,” Jane says.
            Callum shrugs. “It’s alright,” he says. “This summer’s definitely been the best.”
            Jane looks surprised. “Really?” she says.
            “Yeah,” Callum says. “I like you guys.”
            She turns to Emi. “How do you like Vancouver?”
            “I love it!” Emi says. “I’ve never lived in a city so close to nature before. So many nice parks, and the cherry blossoms.”
            Jane seems disappointed by this answer. Emi looks at Callum with a little smile. He feels a wash of gratitude. The first thing you notice about Emi is that she’s tall. Just over six feet, or so she says. And she’s not afraid to show it off. She wears a fluorescent pink tank top, with short jean shorts and sandals.
            They order a round of drinks. Manny pays, and laughs when he brings them to the table. “You Canadians are so strange,” he says. “In Paris I wouldn’t have left the house to go to the bar until hours from now.”
            “Yeah,” Andy says. “Vancouver is a sleepy city.”
            “Why is that, do you think?” Emi says. This is the first time she seems engaged in the conversation, leaning forward into the table rather than sitting straight up.
            Andy shrugs. “No money?” he says. “Everyone spending all their money on rent.”
            “It is interesting,” Manny says. “The way a city develops. Maybe it’s something to do with the transit? It’s closed so early. Two A.M. at the latest.”
            Andy says, “I think the transit is a factor too. The last train leaves Waterfront at, what, one-thirty? And nobody cool actually lives downtown–”
            “Hey,” Manny says. “I live downtown.”
            Andy looks at him, then raises his eyebrows. Everyone laughs.
            Manny raises his glass of beer. “To Emi!” he says. “Come back soon.” They all meet their glasses in the middle, laughing.
            They’re walking down Granville, heading to Manny’s apartment. Andy and Manny lead the way, with Jane in between, looking at her phone while walking. Callum follows with Emi.
            “I really meant it,” he said.
            “What?” Emi asks. She’s drunk too, but she doesn’t walk like it.
            “What I said. This is the best summer I’ve had.”
            She slips her arm into his. “That’s nice,” she says.
            Manny’s place is warm and small. The furniture is old, but the good kind of old. They sit on a tastefully aged leather couch. The decorations are earth-tones and deep crimsons. Manny makes them all gin and tonics in highball glasses, and he puts on jazz with a driving beat and soaked-down melodies. Callum finds himself sinking into the conversation, the music, the couch. Manny and Andy go out to the balcony to smoke weed and talk. Emi’s in the kitchen; she’s taken the liberty of making nachos.
            Jane’s sitting beside him, but she’s craning to look out at the balcony.
            “Don’t worry about it,” Callum says. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything.
            Jane’s head snaps around. “What?” she says.
            “Andy and Manny,” Callum says. “Don’t worry about it.”
            “I’m not.” She shifts herself so the balcony isn’t in her range of vision and stares
straight ahead, taking a large swallow of her screwdriver.
            “We’ve been talking about an open relationship,” she says.
            Callum looks over to the kitchen, where Emi is.
            “Would you ever do an open thing?” Jane says. She’s not looking at him, though, just staring straight ahead. Holding her head so that it doesn’t move, like she’s had to lock into place not to look.
            “I don’t think so,” Callum says.
            “Well,” Jane says. “Andy’s talked about trying men. What’s up with that?”
            “A lot of people–”
            “Why would he wait though,” she says, “until he’s two years into a relationship. We work and live together, and now he brings this up?”
            Before Callum can reply, Emi glides in, carrying a plate of nachos. She sets it down on the coffee table and sits down on the couch between Jane and Callum. Emi looks between
them, her face open and curious. “What are we talking about?”
            Jane’s eyes flick to the left, but don’t quite get to Emi’s face. She sinks further into the couch, scowling like a child whose favourite toy broke. Callum reaches over and grabs a handful of nachos. Sticky cheese and olives and beans roll off, back on to the plate.
            Later, Andy and Jane and Emi are dancing. Callum’s on the seat, drinking the old-fashioned Manny made him. Manny’s beside, curating the playlist. Callum’s never heard any of this music. Most of it is slow and and droning, warm bass and sparse beats carrying their bodies like a calm breeze on the ocean. Callum is drunk and high enough to watch without thinking, his mouth open a little bit.
            “You don’t dance?” Manny asks.
            Callum just shakes his head. The song changes, the beat picks up, and Emi is there, jumping. She reaches her hand out, smiling that big white smile. Callum looks to the side, nervous, but she grabs his hand. She pulls him up, her hand is on his shoulder, his arm, and everywhere she’s been his skin is hot, and they’re all dancing. Manny too. Dancing, and laughing. The song ends and they flop onto the couch, limbs tangled together.
            You can’t fuse people together. That’s impossible. But while he’s on that couch, that brown faded leather, he feels as close to them as he ever has to anyone. He can feel their minds glowing beside him, and their bodies hot to the touch. Emi stands out, her arm thrown across his shoulders, leg draped over his knee. He looks up at the ceiling, inebriation pawing at the edge of his vision. “I’m going to quit, I think,” he says. He feels Emi lift her head up, but no one else notices. He lifts his head up and looks at her. Behind her, Andy and Manny’s faces are close together, leaning in, kissing.


            That good feeling fell out. Andy and Jane are in the other room, arguing. They’re trying to be quiet, but their whispers are harsh, cutting under the glass doors to Manny’s kitchen. Manny’s sitting at the edge of the couch, making a show of looking ashamed. “I’m sorry it happened,” he said. But when Callum looks at him again, he’s looking at the door to the room where Andy and Jane are fighting, and he’s got a little smile on his face.
            Callum knows when to leave. He ducks his head into the dining room long enough to say goodbye. Andy and Jane are close, sitting on chairs, talking, their heads close together. He waves, and Andy waves back. Emi says she’s going with him, they both hug Manny goodbye. As Callum is putting his shoes on, he sees Jane and Andy come out of the dining room. Jane hesitates, and then hugs Manny.
            “You guys coming?” Emi asks.
            “Nah,” Andy says. “We’ll stay here, have another drink.”
            Outside, it’s raining. A thin, coating rain that soaks their faces the second they step out of the apartment building. The skytrain’s shut down. Emi and Callum decide to walk down Pender, to the night bus. Emi’s going south, but she says she likes the walk. Down Pender, between the apartment buildings after it crosses Georgia, there are a few blocks of quiet. The restaurants are long-closed, the managers done counting money, headed home to their too-small apartments, the patrons moved to a downtown club or bar or their own homes,
probably in Burnaby, maybe even a house. “You’re going to quit?” Emi says.
            “Yeah,” Callum says.
            “You’ve been there for a while,” she says. Callum looks at her. She’s soaked, brown hair stuck to her cheeks, little droplets of water standing out on her forehead and lips.
            “Yeah,” he says. “I have.”
            “Why the sudden change?”
            “You must be freezing,” he says.
            Emi laughs. “Yeah, I guess I am. You know what? Let’s call a cab.”
            They stand under the awning of an apartment building. Emi calls a cab. Callum sits down on a bench. He feels a little dizzy. Emi sits down beside him, rubbing her legs with her hands. “It was a good day,” she says.
            “I’m going to miss you,” Callum says.
            She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Callum looks out. For a moment, it seems like he can see the rain, sheeting over the entire city.
            “I’m going to miss you too.”
            The cab pulls up. Emi goes to it, but Callum stays on the bench. “You’re going south,” he says when she turns back. “I’m going east. I’ll catch the night bus.”
            She’s got her hand on the door of the cab. Her pink shirt and jean shorts are dark with rainwater. “Get in the cab, Callum.”