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for all three of them. Most of what he knows about Nik’s life now comes second- or third-hand, and if Aaron only keeps his Facebook open in the hope that one day Nik will change his mind and reactivate his own account, well, long and lingering pain is just a part of having a serious ex. After last night, though, he’s a little thrown, and Nik doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to decode any of his own behavior for Aaron.
    Aaron smiles at Nik and is opening his mouth to ask him something, anything, when Stephanie turns to him with a chirpy, “How’s Josh?” Aaron frowns down at his dinner before he looks up at Stephanie. “He’s fine. He met a girl and it looks like it’s getting serious—he was talking about rings at lunch yesterday.”
    Stephanie’s head snaps back. “Rings. Oh, holy… wow. That’s… I mean, is she new?”
    He looks back at his plate; he had really hoped this wouldn’t come up. “Not too new—I met her at Christmas. She’s all right—she’s pretty—but at least when I met her, she seemed to think that he was some great catch, so that should tell you something about her judgment and taste level.” He knows this is an asshole move, and that Josh deserves better, but whatever happened between Stephanie and Josh was too weird, and he doesn’t want to encourage anybody to pick it up again. He doesn’t know the whole story; all he knows is that he stopped answering Josh’s questions about Stephanie a long time ago, and Stephanie seems to ration out her own questions. Both of them know how to use the Internet.
    Stephanie laughs a little too loudly and bumps his shoulder. “Don’t be like that about your cousin! He’s a good guy! Are they coming to the wedding?”
    “I think Josh is; he’s on weekdays at the refinery. I’m not sure about Meg—the girl.” He knows Josh is coming; he saved the address to Josh’s phone before he left the house yesterday. But he doesn’t want Stephanie to feel crushed at the thought of seeing her sort-of-ex, who’s all but engaged to somebody else, and he might as well give her time to get used to the idea.
    But it isn’t a problem, apparently, as Stephanie grins and claps her hands together, “Oh my God, I can tell her the best stories! Soooo, what about you? Are you dating anybody?” She gives him a look and oh, God, she’s trying to be sly. God save them all.
    “Stephanie, I saw you three weeks ago. You’re the most fre­quent commenter on my blog and you are a compulsive Face­book stalker. Have you heard me mention anybody?”
    “Noooo, but I do see tagged pictures of you; you just always delete the tags so they’re harder to find later. But you do look like you’re having a good time!” Now it’s Stephanie who refuses to make eye contact; she smirks down at her salad, even when he gives her his best “shut-it-now” expression, the one he knows she can still read. He has no idea if Nik realizes that Stephanie has just called him a slut; he can see Nik out of the corner of his eye, but he’s focused on dinner. His body is turned toward Aaron and obviously following their conversation, but he doesn’t react to any of it.
    “I see people, I go out, but there’s nobody serious, nobody… yeah. What about you?”
    She lifts her eyes from her plate, finally, and fixes him with a look of triumph that makes it clear that was absolutely pay­back for not telling her about Josh and Meg earlier. “Oh, you know—work is an obsession, especially now that I’m headed to New York. And you, Nik? Anybody new after Oliver?”
    Aaron can’t believe it— Stephanie Baxter just breezed through an opportunity to talk about herself . Suddenly, this whole bizarre conversation makes sense; he would bet his entire collection of journals that she has her eye on getting them back together. Aaron shivers.
    “Oh.” Nik drops his fork and rubs his hands up and down his thighs—how interesting is that tell? Aaron thrills a little, that he can still read