AN Iggycat: I just want it to be very clear that this entire chapter was a labor of love on behalf of Zeplerfer. When I was completely unmotivated to finish this story she took it upon herself to finish it. So all credit for this chapter definitely belongs to Zep. I thank her for helping me finish the story, and I thank all the readers who have stuck with us until the end. I hope you enjoy the final chapter!


"Crème de la crème boulangerie, comment puis-je vous aider?"

"I don't suppose you deliver to California," I said, closing my eyes and leaning back against a rather uncomfortable throw pillow my mother had insisted I take with me when I moved. "Because I could go for about 30 of those little puff pastry logs you make with the whipped cream and fresh strawberries."

I could hear Francis shift the telephone around as well as some muffled French in the background. Then a moment later:

"Arthur what time is it there?"

I blinked bleary eyes open and held my phone far enough away from my face that the tiny white numbers came into focus. I had to squint a bit to see them. Perhaps it was time to look into some spectacles.

"Half past one," I replied, trying to get comfortable once more but that dastardly pillow had already given me a crick in my neck.

On the other end of the line I heard more shuffling and some murmured French followed by Francis speaking to one of his subordinates just a tad bit louder: "Angélique, assistes des clients, s'il te plait. Je m'occupe de quelque chose." Then in French clearly meant for me, "Un moment, s'il vous plait."

The sounds of the bakery—ruffled paper bags amongst friendly chit-chat and clinking dishes—faded into the background. For a moment I thought I heard the steady grind of an espresso machine but I couldn't for the life of me remember Francis having one the last time I was there. Perhaps he'd upgraded since then. I needed to ask him about that sometime.

Then there was the sound of a door shutting and the cacophony of bakery noises ceased. All that came through the receiver after that point was very accented but fluent English.

"What are you doing up at half past one?" Francis asked somewhat concerned. "I thought you dropped that since college. Do you not now retire after your afternoon viewing of Countdown?"

"Oh very funny," I replied, though I mentally made a note never to mention to Francis that I'd gotten rather hooked on American game shows else I'd never hear the end of it.

I shifted on the couch, and brought my mug of tea closer to myself, taking a moment to consider how to proceed.

"Francis, what would you say if I told you I'd somehow, unintentionally, become..." how should I phrase it? "...the object of my boss's affection?"

"You're going to have to elaborate, mon lapin. Do not leave me hanging."

With a sigh I settled back into the couch cushions and began retelling the story that had been replaying in my head for the past few hours. It was nearly twenty minutes before I even got to the climax. By that point, I had finished my tea and moved into the kitchen to clean the dishes.

"After some awful jokes at Berkeley's expense he invited me to the top of the clock tower. That sounded rather nice so I agreed and we rode the lift up to the observation deck. And then... once we were at the peak and I was mesmerized by the view..."

I ground to a halt, but it wasn't long before Francis goaded me into continuing.

"Go on…"

I sighed once more before I continued. "When we were at the top… with the lovely vista laid out before us, he turned to me and said while it was certainly a gorgeous view from up there, it paled in comparison to the one from across his desk where I used to sit," I said, recapping last Saturday's events.

On the other end of the line, Francis scoffed. "Americans. They think cheesy pick-up lines are a substitute for romance."

"Need I remind you that you've used your fair share of pick-up lines," I chided as I tucked my phone beneath my ear and finished washing my teapot.

"Yes, but the lines are better in French. So… what did you say?"

"Nothing," I admitted. "I was too surprised."

"Surprised? I doubt that anyone else was." I could practically see the I-told-you-so smirk on his face. "You are utterly hopeless at romance, you know."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, well, if I were good at it, I wouldn't be calling you for advice, now would I?" Shifting the sudsy teapot to the other hand, I reached for a small, flexible brush.

Francis laughed. "Touché. Still, I would have thought even you would have noticed his level of flirting. He bought you flowers!"

"A housewarming gift," I replied defensively. I wiggled the brush into the spout, attacking the stains with extra vigor as I took out my confusion on the poor dishes.

"He took you on dates around the city."

"He was being nice and showing the new intern around," I insisted, but the more I thought about it, the less certain I was. Perhaps I could pass off the aquarium as a work-related visit, but the ice cream shop afterward had been anything but. Alfred had even shared his ice cream with me! People didn't normally share ice cream with their supervisors, did they?

Okay, I admitted to myself, in hindsight I really shouldn't have been so surprised when Alfred's flirting grew more blatant. I just wished I had managed a better response to his corny one-liner. Instead, we were stuck awkwardly dancing around each other in the office as we both avoided an issue that neither of us knew how to talk about.

"So… do you need my help filing a sexual harassment lawsuit?" Francis asked, jumping to the wrong conclusion as my silence dragged on.

"It's not like that," I reassured him. "Alfred wouldn't want to make me uncomfortable. He dropped it as soon as he saw my surprise. I just… I told him I needed time."

"Ah, the classic response of stuffy English reticence. Here's my advice: no one likes to kiss a stiff upper lip."

I frowned, annoyed at Francis for baiting me and even more irritated with myself for wanting his romantic guidance enough to put up with it. "Are you planning to help, or do you just intend to mock me?"

"It's not my fault that you are so easily riled, Arthur," he teased. "But of course I intend to help! Do you want my advice on how to woo him, or to let him down gently?"

I set the teapot in the drying rack and reached for the closest towel. I pondered his question while staring into the fog outside my kitchen window. "I'm not sure," I finally admitted.

"Then let's take this one step at a time, shall we? Is he handsome?"

"Why is that your first question?"

"Just answer it, Arthur."

I turned away from the window, leaning against the counter and folding my arms. "Well… yes." I tried not to think about my supervisor that way, but I wasn't blind. Alfred had a great body and a charming smile. Walking up and down the hills of San Francisco had clearly done him and his leg muscles a lot of good.

"And do you like talking to him?"

"I did… when we used to talk." We had chatted so much when we worked together. Even though Roderich and Elizabeta were more professional, I missed my easy companionship with Alfred.

"So would you date him if he hadn't started out as your supervisor?"

I walked over to my small breakfast nook and sat down on the bench in the bay window. Fog curled around the row houses across the street as I weighed the pros and cons of dating Alfred. He was handsome and sweet and I was interested, but I had no idea how it would work in the office. Other than the employment issues, I was finding it hard to come up with any negatives—somehow his faults had become endearing. Even—dare I admit it—his cheesy puns. "You know, I probably would."

"So why not give it a try? Get to know him."

I sighed. "It's more complicated than that. What if things go wrong and I'm stuck in an awkward work environment?"

"More awkward than it is now?" Francis asked pointedly. I ignored him.

"There's also my application to Pendleton. I could be moving to London soon!"

"How soon?"

"They said they'd call my references and give me an answer by the end of the month."

"Hmm. Hopefully they don't call your current job."

I scoffed. "Of course not. I listed my supervisors from my days back in Manchester."

"You didn't mention your current internship at all?" he asked in surprise.

"Just on my CV."

"Well, I'm sure they won't think to use the internet to find the contact number for your current supervisor," Francis reassured me sarcastically. "And whose name will they find if they search for the internship posting?"

My stomach sank. They would find exactly what I had found that fateful day I let a publishing internship take me halfway across the world. "Alfred's."

"Ah, so they will call a reference who didn't know you applied and who has an ulterior motive to keep you in San Francisco. I'm sure that will work out well."

"Alfred wouldn't do that," I insisted, yet a dark voice inside my head whispered otherwise. Even if he wasn't upset about my romantic rejection, surely he would be annoyed that I had applied to another job only a few months into my current internship without so much as consulting him.

"You would know better than I," Francis replied. "In that case, you should invite him on a date."

"Why?"

"To see if you like him enough to stay. Maybe everything will work out better than you expected. And if it doesn't, you already have your exit strategy planned!"

"You make it sound easy."

"Making romance sound easy is what I do best," Francis replied cheerfully.

Despite my natural pessimism, I found myself buoyed by his hopeful advice. We chatted for a few more minutes about his recent travels, but I paid barely any attention to our conversation. Monday was too soon and yet too far away. In the meantime, I could only pray that I hadn't botched both my employment and my romantic prospects.


When Monday finally rolled around, I stopped by one of the many local coffee shops on my walk from the BART and purchased one cup of tea and one caramel latte. It seemed precisely what Alfred would like—strong, sweet, and overly caffeinated.

As I entered the office and rounded the corner, I heard two voices arguing by the kitchenette.

"A dozen donuts don't just disappear," Elizabeta complained, putting her hands on her hips.

"They could," Gilbert replied with a grin. "Remember the manuscript that Russian submitted about giant, killer donuts? In Soviet Russia, donuts eat you!"

"You're saying a horror story ate my donuts?"

"Yep."

"Gilbert, this is your worst excuse yet." Elizabeta sighed and rolled her eyes, catching sight of me as she turned to walk away from our donut-devouring secretary. Her expression immediately brightened. "Oh, Arthur! I've left some new manuscripts on your desk. I have a meeting, but we'll chat later, okay?"

"Of course," I replied, pleased that she was distracted enough by the donut theft and her meeting to not notice the two coffee cups I held in my hands. Elizabeta read romance into the smallest of actions and I didn't want to deal with her knowing looks for the rest of the day. She hurried off to get her notes for the meeting while I continued down the hallway to Alfred's office. His door was closed, surprising me enough that I stood there for a few moments, tea in one hand and coffee in the other. Was Alfred busy? Was it worth disturbing him? I didn't want his coffee to get cold, but I also didn't want to bother him if he had something important going on.

Deciding it was better to err on the side of caution, I turned to leave. Fate however, was clearly not on my side that morning as I pivoted away from the door… and rammed straight into Alfred, who was striding toward his office while checking his phone. My hand bumped into his shirt and hot tea splashed onto both of us.

"Whoa!" Alfred cried. He blinked at me in surprise. "Arthur? What are—"

"Your tie! I'm so sorry," I hastily apologized for the brown liquid coating his brightly colored neckwear. So much for my plans to make a good impression with coffee.

"Hey, don't worry about the tie. I get stuff on it all the time." He glanced down at the tie and noticed it wasn't the only spill. "Your hand!" he exclaimed upon noting that the remnants of my Early Grey was dribbling down my palm. "Hold on a sec," Alfred ordered before he ducked into his office and grabbed a few napkins from one of the fast food bags on his desk. He reached out and started gently dabbing my hand with the napkins. After a second he paused and awkwardly handed me the napkins. "Or maybe you want to…"

"Thank you," I replied as I took the napkins and finished drying off my hand. "Do you have a moment?"

"Uh, of course." Alfred gestured for me to come in. I sat down at 'my' side of the desk and placed what was left of the tea in front of me. Reaching over the piles of disorganized manuscripts, I offered the caramel latte to Alfred once he had finished taking off his stained tie. He accepted the cup with a look of surprise, quirking his lips upward in the closest thing to a smile I had seen from him since our visit to Berkeley. "What's this for?"

"A thank you for all the cups you brought me." Yet another clue I had so foolishly missed. In an internship it wasn't normally the supervisor who bought the coffee.

"It wasn't anything… I mean, it was just appreciation for all the work you did." Alfred rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "And it was nice to see you smile."

I took a quick sip of tea to hide my flustered expression. I couldn't imagine that my smile was worth a cup of tea per day. Even though he had delivered the comment offhandedly, those words meant far more than his pick-up line on the observation deck.

"So what'd you want to talk about?" Alfred asked as the silence dragged on.

I set my cup back on the desk and rested my hands in my lap. Where to begin?

"Last month," I started uncertainly, "when you transferred me to a new supervisor, I thought you were unhappy with my work…"

Alfred gaped. "What? No, of course not!"

"Yes, I think I know why you did it now," I replied wryly. "But I… well, after what happened with the magazine, I started looking around for other jobs, just in case."

"Oh." He blinked as a look of understanding crossed his face. "You're saying I shouldn't be surprised to hear from other employers interested in you."

I nodded. Alfred had caught on quickly, but I didn't want to disclose any more details lest he think I lacked commitment to my current internship. It was even possible Pendleton would never bother contacting him if they were satisfied with the recommendations of my previous supervisors.

"Well, thanks for letting me know and for bribing me for a good recommendation," he said with a smile, as he raised his cup. "At this point I think I should transfer them to Rod or Liz. Do you want me to let them know that someone might be calling, or are you going to tell them yourself?"

"You can tell them," I replied, relieved that I wouldn't be forced to have two more awkward conversations about my recent job hunt. "And the coffee isn't a bribe."

"No?"

I flushed slightly, embarrassed at what I was about to do, but still convinced that it was the best way to ease the awkwardness between us. I shook my head. "No. It's because I've been thinking about you a latte."

Alfred blinked twice. "Did you just…?" He grinned and then burst out laughing. Leaning forward, he slapped the table and nearly knocked his stack of manuscripts onto the floor. After far more laughter than my pitiful pun deserved, he wiped the tears from his eyes and grinned. "Wow."

"It wasn't that good."

"I know. I just didn't think you'd ever use a coffee pick-up line on me. Or any pick-up line." He gave me a puzzled look. "I thought you were straight?"

"I don't know why."

Alfred tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. "But you…"

"I never said I wasn't interested, I just said I needed time to think about it." I gripped my left arm with my right hand, a gesture I tended to rely on when flustered.

"What's there to think about?" he asked, looking a little more hopeful.

"How us dating would work, for starters. Especially at work."

"Don't worry, I've got that covered," Alfred said earnestly, leaning forward onto his desk and nearly tipping over his coffee cup. "Rod and Liz are in charge of your assignments and any employment decisions. They've already got something in mind, but you'll find out about that soon enough."

My stomach tightened. "Should I be worried?"

"No, no, it's a good surprise!"

"Oh." I frowned, never one for surprises. I hoped it wasn't another sudden transfer. Was I to be sent with Kiku on his next travelogue adventure? Actually, that sounded rather enjoyable.

"So does that mean you want to go on a date? An official date?" Alfred asked perhaps a little too eagerly.

"Let's just say I think there's something brewing between us and I'd like a chance to figure out what it is," I replied.

"Wow." He grinned and laughed again. "Coffee, puns, and a date. This is the best I've ever felt on a Monday morning! You could say… my cup runneth over." He winked.

Seeing the pure joy in his smile, I suddenly understood why Alfred had kept bringing me a cup of tea each morning. Not willing to admit I had actually enjoyed his puns, I made him an offer: "If you promise me no more puns, I'll bring you coffee for the rest of the week."

Alfred chuckled. "Figures you'd offer during a three-day week."

"What?"

"We've got Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving."

I turned and glanced at the calendar pinned to the wall behind Alfred's desk. It was hard to believe it was nearly the end of November. "Oh, I'd forgotten."

"You don't have plans for Thanksgiving?" he asked, somewhat horrified. "You can't spend Thanksgiving alone!"

I shrugged. "It's just another day."

"No, no. It's the best holiday! It's all the food of Christmas without the pressure of getting gifts." His face settled into a thoughtful expression. "So, I know this isn't a typical date, but I'm having Friendsgiving with some friends at Stanford and you're welcome to come. We can do something more date-like afterward."

"You're inviting me to Friendsgiving as a date?" I smiled. We seemed to be going about this dating business all wrong. "I'd love to."


The hallways were thankfully empty and I returned to Elizabeta's office to find her still gone. As she had promised, there were several new manuscripts piled on my desk.

I plucked one off the top and started reading. I wasn't surprised to find that it featured two male neighbors and their quirky, flirtatious relationship. Elizabeta reveled in giving me the LGBT romances, but I didn't mind. Someone had to make sure that the male leads written by female authors didn't sound too feminine.

As I read along, I jotted down my comments on the margins of the script. The story was light and heartwarming, just what the morning called for. It even turned out to be a work romance, though it took the two neighbors until chapter five to realize that they were both professors at the same university. Lucky them, I thought to myself. They avoided the whole mess of courting a coworker and jumped straight to the steady dating stage. I sighed and dropped my head to the desk, wishing everything could be much simpler.

"Taking a nap?" Gilbert asked, startling me out of my woolgathering as he stepped into the office. I looked up and saw him set a box onto Liz's desk. "Don't worry, I won't tell. I nod off too sometimes," the secretary admitted with a cheeky grin. "Usually I crawl under the desk though. Less noticeable that way."

I found it hard to imagine that a person sleeping under their desk could be unobtrusive, but that was just a distraction from the real issue. "So you did steal the donuts," I said, nodding my head toward the suspiciously shaped box.

"Not me!" he protested. "Gilbird just wanted a little snack."

"Another reason why you shouldn't keep a bird at the office."

"Look, I won't tell her about your nap if you don't mention the donuts," he offered.

"I wasn't napping," I retorted, but Gilbert ignored me and made his escape before Elizabeta could catch him red-handed with the box. I rolled my eyes. The staid reliability of Pendleton suddenly seemed all the more appealing.

A few minutes later Elizabeta strolled into her office wearing a pleased smile.

"Good meeting?" I asked.

"Good news about the budget," she explained. "I think we have room for more staffing."

"That's great," I replied, thinking about the piles of unread manuscripts sitting forlorn in the mail room. "Which division?"

"Horror's been popular lately, so probably another permanent position there. We tend to move people around when necessary, but it's hard to staff horror because we can't give any of it to Alfred. We learned that lesson early."

I tilted my head to the side, sending her a questioning look. "Why not?"

"He's the biggest scaredy-cat you'll ever meet. You should take him to a horror film some time and see what happens." She tapped her chin as a huge smile spread across her face. "Although you might want to bring some adult diapers just in case."

"I see," I replied, more amused by the idea than I cared to admit. "So you're looking for someone new?"

"No." Her smile widened. "We were thinking of you."

"Me?"

"Yes, we always try to find permanent positions for our interns, if budget allows."

"That's very generous…" I managed to reply, even as I panicked and wondered if she wanted a response right away.

"I'm afraid I don't have specifics yet. It was only a preliminary budget, but I wanted to let you know in case something else popped up. I understand there might be other factors to consider." She winked and I immediately spotted one advantage of going back to work for Roderich. He wasn't going to be quite so interested in my personal life.

I nodded. One way or another, I would have to make my decision soon.

Elizabeta sat down at her desk and spotted the donut box, saving me from any further questions. Her mouth tightened into a small line, then relaxed into a smile as she opened the box. She laughed and showed me the note that was inside.

'I'm sorry my bird ate your donuts,' was scribbled upon a torn piece of notebook paper. Beneath it was a box of pumpkin spice filled Ghirardelli chocolate squares. Elizabeta unwrapped one and popped it into her mouth. "Gilbert might not be the best employee, but he does have good taste in chocolates."

As she sorted through the papers on her desk, I returned to the manuscript I had been reading earlier. The romance developed slowly and naturally as the two neighbors began to spend more time together. I particularly enjoyed the extended metaphor comparing one character's rose garden to budding love, although I was forced to note that roses weren't known for blooming in October. Perhaps in a warmer spot like San Francisco, but not in a New England college town.

My mind drifted to the Berkeley Rose Garden Alfred had mentioned in one of our earlier chats. If he wasn't such a talented editor, he would have made a wonderful tour guide. I smiled to myself and eagerly returned to the novel at hand.


After several days spent pondering my impending decision, the holiday break came as a much needed relief. Alfred seemed determined to match the light cheerfulness of our earlier trips and I found myself settling back into that groove without any problems. It helped that the foggy skies of San Francisco cleared as we moved further south.

By the time we reached Stanford's campus in Palo Alto, it had turned into a beautiful fall day.

"Isn't Stanford gorgeous?" Alfred bragged as we approached the center of campus on a palm-lined boulevard. The main quad greeted us in the distance, its tan adobe walls and red-clay rooftop creating a bold color contrast with the bright blue sky. A beautiful church stood in the center of the quad.

"It's lovely," I agreed. "How does anyone manage to go to class?"

"We don't. We just played Frisbee all the time."

"I don't believe that for a second. You went to class and you did the reading. You might look like a jock, but I know a nerd when I see one."

"Guilty," he said with a laugh. "It was the nice thing about going here. We're all nerds together."

"It's so quiet," I noticed as we drove into the more residential areas of campus. I saw a few students going past on bicycles, but the campus was mostly empty.

"Yeah. They get a whole week for Thanksgiving break, so a lot of kids go home." We pulled into a parking space near a residential complex and he gestured towards the cars. "Not so much the grad students, though, especially the international ones."

"That makes sense. No point in going home if they don't even celebrate it," I agreed. I shut the car door behind me and followed Alfred down a stone path and up an outdoor staircase to one of the apartments in the middle of the complex. As we walked, Alfred explained that his former roommate had stayed on for grad school and now lived with his boyfriend and two other international graduate students. He knocked and the door opened to reveal a tiny apartment overflowing with the decadent aroma of cooking food.

A young man with chin-length brown hair hugged Alfred as soon as he walked into the apartment. It was a warm, tight hug and I felt an unexpected twinge of jealousy. They looked close, a fact that the other man confirmed when he introduced himself as Alfred's former college roommate, Toris. He welcomed me into the apartment with a gentle, easy-going manner and took me along to meet the others.

We started in the kitchen with a blond man who was busy cooking dinner in a frilly pink apron. "Feliks, this is Alfred's date, Arthur," Toris said over the sound of boiling pots.

I flushed. Of course Alfred had needed to describe his plus one to his friends somehow, but I still wasn't used to being called his date. "The food looks great," I said weakly.

"Thanks! I hope you like Tofurkey," Feliks replied before returning to his pots and pans.

"What's that?" I whispered to Alfred.

"What it sounds like. A turkey made of tofu."

"Are you sure this isn't Berkeley?" I teased.

As we stepped into the living room, the first thing that struck me was the excess of technology. A futon faced a giant television, which resembled an octopus with cables spreading out in all directions to various gaming devices. Between the beautiful weather outside and the plethora of entertainment options inside, I wondered how any of the graduate students managed to get their work done. It was only after I'd taken in the technical grandeur that I realized one of Alfred's friends was waving at us while simultaneously fiddling with the apartment's sound system. We collectively took a few steps toward him.

"Eduard, this is Arthur," Toris said by way of introduction.

I lifted my hand to greet him, but slowly lowered it as Eduard didn't look up from his work. Trying to ignore the awkwardness of my failed gesture, I pursued another tactic.

"So what do you study?" I asked Eduard as he rearranged some wires and the sound of gentle instrumental music filled the room.

"CS."

"Computer science," Alfred translated. "Basically, if you ever have a tech problem, Eduard's your guy."

"I think you do a good job handling our tech problems," I replied, earning a pleased smile from Alfred. "So are you working on a start-up?" I asked Eduard, since that was the extent of my computer knowledge.

He shook his head. "No, I'm more interested in improving internet access."

"Like faster speeds?" I asked.

"No, more like finding ways to do everything online."

Alfred smirked. "Everything?"

I swatted him on the shoulder while Eduard grew more animated in discussing his passion. "Shopping, voting, banking. What's the point of coding interesting sites if no one can visit them? Information wants to be free!"

"I hope there's still room for old fashioned books in your brave new world," I replied.

Toris glanced at Alfred. "You know, that's what Al always says."

"Because it's true! You can't DDOS a paperback."

"You also can't share a paper book instantaneously with thousands of people around the world," Eduard replied.

"Sharing isn't actually helpful for our pricing model," I interjected.

"I know. I have some thoughts about that too," Eduard said before launching into a discussion of creative digital rights and pay-what-you-want price structures. "With low marginal costs and no middleman, anyone could become a writer."

"Some people would share stories for free for the sheer joy of writing," I replied. "But I think you'd be left with a lot of writers who couldn't afford to leave their jobs."

"Not if you develop the system right," Eduard said earnestly, his eyes shining with enthusiasm for academic intellectual discourse. "I think technology gives more than it takes. Just look at spell checking and how it's made the process more efficient!"

I smiled. "Spell checking is a marvelous invention, but it will never eliminate the need for a human editor. Not as long as homophones exist."

Alfred nodded. "Plus, a computer doesn't know how to make puns. And where would we be without puns?" he asked rhetorically.

Eduard and I shared a look. "Point one for the machines," I conceded, while Eduard grinned. It seemed I wasn't the only one to be wounded with ammo from Alfred's pun arsenal.

The next—and final—stop on my apartment tour was the small dining nook next to the kitchen. It contained a table, six mismatched chairs, and a bookcase with the most impressive collection of board games I had ever seen.

"And this here is Raivis," Toris said as a short young man with a shy smile joined us at the dining room table. He didn't look old enough to be a grad student. He also seemed the quietest of the bunch, though he opened up when I asked him about some of the various strategy games I'd eyed on the shelf behind him.

Seeing my interest, he selected one of the simpler games and we played as we waited for Feliks to finish cooking dinner. The rules were relatively simple. The board consisted of a variety of colored tiles in the shape of an island. We chose our initial settlements, then each rolled for resources, and competed to build settlements, roads, and cities.

Since I was the newbie, Alfred and the others mostly focused their competition on each other, which proved to be their undoing. After several lucky rolls, I glanced down at my resource cards and found the game stirring up my intensely competitive streak.

"Does anyone have wood?" I asked innocently.

Alfred snickered. I ignored him and traded my valuable ore for a variety of different resources from Toris and Raivis. I even traded with Alfred once he stopped laughing. Once I had finished trading and built a new settlement, I smirked and flipped over a monopoly card. I used it to reclaim all of the ore I had traded with the other players. It was enough to build a city and pushed me over the point total to victory.

"That wasn't hard," I said, grinning at Alfred's gobsmacked expression.

"Clear the table, dinner is ready!" Feliks called. Any bad feelings were soon forgotten as we packed away the game and made room for the tofurkey at the center of the dining table. In addition to the vegetarian turkey, Feliks had made many traditional Thanksgiving foods—mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, crescent rolls, and roasted brussels sprouts. I inhaled deeply. It all smelled divine.

There wasn't enough room for the dishes at the table, so we served ourselves one by one in the kitchen and returned to the dining table with our plates heaped with food. I waited expectantly, wondering if anyone wanted to say grace.

"We should each say something we're thankful for," Feliks proposed as he sliced the tofurkey. "I'm totally grateful for Toris… and also tomorrow's shopping deals."

Toris blushed. "I'm grateful for this lovely dinner. Thank you, Feli."

"I'm grateful for my T1 line," Eduard said.

Feliks rolled his eyes. "No tofu for you until you come up with something better."

"But it gives me access to everything."

"Then pick one of those things," Feliks replied.

"But there are so many to choose from," Eduard murmured to himself. He glanced down at his plate and frowned in thought.

"Gmail… youtube… cat videos?" Alfred suggested as he faced the prospect of his food cooling down while Eduard dithered over his choice. "Wikipedia?"

"Yes, Wikipedia!" Eduard agreed with the gratitude of a student saved from a pop quiz. "I'm grateful for people sharing their knowledge. I don't know where I'd be without it. "

"Probably at the library," I suggested wryly.

"I'm grateful for Arthur's dry wit," Alfred said with a smile.

"I'm grateful for good friends who like board games," Raivis added.

They turned to look at me. "New opportunities," I said as I caught Alfred's glance. He beamed at me and I smiled back. Under the table, I felt him reach over and place a hand on my knee. I rested my hand on top of his and gave a gentle squeeze. Even if I returned to London, I would always look back fondly on my time at Golden Gateway.


After several more rounds of board games, the most hostile game of UNO I've ever taken part of, and Alfred challenging Feliks to more than ten rounds of Dance Dance Revolution (never once claiming victory) and a few attempts to get me on the dancing mat (to which I virulently refused), we finally called it quits a little after 3am. I yawned as I leaned back into Alfred's comfortable passenger seat. "Thank you for inviting me. This was fun."

"If you're okay with staying up past dawn," Alfred began, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to look at me. "Would you like to do something a little more romantic?" he asked as we drove along dark, quiet roads.

"You mean, go back to your apartment?" I quirked an eyebrow and my cheeks he flushed.

"No, no, not my apartment," he assured as his face bloomed. If he didn't have both hands on the wheel at that moment he would have frantically been waving them in denial. "I mean, that would be nice, but, well…" he was tapping the steering wheel now as he trailed off. "There's someplace even more magical I'd like to show you."

Despite the late hour, more time with Alfred sounded nice. I leaned my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes. "I do hope you're not planning to drive us all the way to Disneyland."

Alfred chuckled. "Nah, I was saving that for the second date."

I smiled despite myself at the thought of spending more evenings like this with Alfred. "Well, I think I could spare a few more hours. My only plan for tomorrow is catching up on sleep."

"This'll be worth it," he promised, though he didn't elaborate.

We passed the time in companionable silence. I could imagine more weekends like this. Visiting friends and playing board games. Traveling along Highway 1 and enjoying the gorgeous ocean views. Relaxing at home with a cup of tea and a book while Alfred read snippets from particularly bad manuscripts. I smiled to myself.

"I'm gonna grab some coffee," Alfred announced as we turned into a 24/7 gas station near the freeway. "Do you want anything?"

I shook my head, and my eyes followed Alfred as the he walked up to the shop, the automatic doors swallowing him up. As I watched my ex-boss and current date pick out a candy bar before he even made it to the coffee counter I found myself smiling. What decisions had I made until now that led me to this exact moment? Sitting in gas station parking lot at nearly four in the morning contemplating my life as Alfred contemplated whether he wanted one sugar or two. In front of me lay a road that forked in two completely different directions. The hardest part was that both routes seemed like good options. The bigger question was, what was my final destination? My entire train of thought ultimately brought me back to literature as it so often did. In my sleepy stupor I was reminded of a passage I had read many times over as a child. Upon encountering the Chesire Cat in Wonderland, the puzzling feline once told Alice that the path you take hardly matters if you don't know where you're trying to go.

Alfred returned a few minutes later with a cup and an unusually sour look on his face. "Ugh, this is awful," he explained. "It tastes like sludge."

"Sounds like grounds for a complaint," I replied dryly.

Alfred nearly snorted coffee out of his nose. Shoulders shaking with laughter, he set the coffee into his cup holder. "Was that intentional?"

"Of course. I specifically looked up a number of coffee puns as a means to impress you. How am I doing?"

He smiled at me, as he put the gearshift in reverse and looked over his shoulder. "Thanks, Arthur. You know, nothing's hotter than coffee puns."

I sighed. "I don't know why I got you started. On a completely unrelated note. I've been meaning to ask you something."

Alfred hummed in consent as he signaled us out of the gas station, onto the dark, local road.

"My understanding of American Thanksgiving is that most people spend it with their families. So how is it that I find myself here?" Alfred quirked a brow and I realized how selfish my prior comment had sounded. "Rather I mean, why is it that you're not spending it with your family? Not that anything's wrong with that. I myself can't stand my brothers as you know." I blather incessantly for a few more moments before my mind finally put the brakes on my mouth. "Oh bother, I'm not particularly eloquent at anytime past 9 PM."

Alfred chuckled as he pulled us back onto the freeway. "You sound like Pooh Bear!" I flustered a bit at that and turned to rest my warm face against the window. "But, no worries, it's a valid question. My folks are in So Cal now and I honestly just hate flying around Thanksgiving. Holiday crowds really make traveling miserable. I mean last year when I went down to meet them, the line to get through TSA was longer than than the actual flight!"

I snorted. "I see."

He kept his eyes on the road. "So, if you don't mind me asking… do you miss your family? Besides your brothers, of course." I felt as if he hadn't quite gotten everything he wanted to say out yet so I waited a moment and then, uncertainly, Alfred asked what was really on his mind. "Do you want to go back to England?"

I sucked in a breath. He glanced over and gave me a look of concern. "Never mind. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's a fair question. There's no point in wasting time with me if I'm just going to pack my bags before the year is out."

Alfred's reply was genuine and instantaneous. "Time with you is never wasted."

As cliche as it sounds, my heart stopped with those words. I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing, instead choosing to watch the California scenery blur as we drove by. Gentle hills rolled past as we made our way north. The soothing motion of the car and the lateness of the hour conspired to lull me into a half-doze. I nodded off and before I knew it, we had reached the Golden Gate Bridge and were crossing over. Even in the wee hours of the morning, there was traffic. I determinedly kept an eye open as we crossed it. The bridge lights were beautiful at night, casting a golden glow over the dark ocean below.

I feel asleep again in the passenger seat and didn't awaken until Alfred gently nudged my shoulder. I blinked open my eyes to find that we had pulled over onto a vista point with a view of the city. In the distance, I could make out the pale, pink fingers of dawn. It seemed that Alfred's romantic surprise was watching the sun rise over San Francisco. We watched and waited. The light grew brighter as the sun crested the horizon, bathing the city in an orange blaze.

"It's lovely," I murmured. "Maybe you should be in the romance division."

"Nah. Liz says I like clichés too much."

"And cheesy pick-up lines."

He smiled at me. "Arthur, are you tired?"

"A little bit," I admitted. Staying up all hours of the night during university never used to faze me, but I was hardly as young as I used to be.

"Cuz you've been running around my mind all night." I groaned, but it only seemed to encourage him. "I've got more where that came from!" he promised. "Do you be—"

He didn't get a chance to finish his next line. My heart had settled on its decision back in the gas station parking lot, even if it took my head time to catch up. Both were in agreement at that moment on what I needed to do next. I leaned over the center console, turned Alfred's head to face me, and muffled his words with my lips. After a moment of surprise, he closed his eyes and eagerly kissed back. His hand brushed the nape of my neck and my skin tingled. As the sun rose in the distance across the bay, we leaned closer and deepened the kiss.

"Wow," Alfred said, a little breathless when we finally pulled apart. "I didn't realize you liked pick-up lines that much."

"I don't. I decided kissing you was the best way to make them stop."

"So what does this mean?" he asked with a hopeful gaze.

I didn't know what the future would hold for either of us. But in the short term, I had an answer. "It means I'll have to tell Pendleton I've had a better offer," I said with a smile.