Klein handed Peter a menu and waved a waiter over.
Peter took it, scanned the prices, and his hand went slightly unsteady. "Klein, this place is — we don't have to eat here, there's plenty of—"
"It's my treat, stop worrying." Klein tapped the menu twice and looked up at the waiter. "The ribeye, medium-rare. Baked lobster. The seafood pasta — make sure the sauce is properly reduced. And the appetizer sampler." He closed the menu. "That's a start."
"Of course, sir." The waiter noted it all down without blinking and withdrew.
Klein leaned back into the sofa, swirling his wine glass, watching Peter straighten his glasses for the fourth time.
"Peter. Listen to me." He kept his voice easy. "Some things, once they're done, they're done. Holding onto it doesn't change what happened — it just makes you miserable longer. Gwen's a good person. I'm not saying she isn't. But she's not the last good person on the planet."
Peter poked at the tablecloth with his fork. "I know. I just..."
"You just haven't been through enough yet." Klein shrugged. "That's not an insult, it's just true. You'll be fine. It takes a few rounds before any of this stops feeling like the end of everything."
Peter didn't answer. His fork made small circles on the white cloth.
The food arrived — steak sizzling on hot plates, lobster golden and fragrant, pasta and appetizers crowding the small table between them.
"Eat." Klein cut into his steak and didn't wait. "Turn the misery into an appetite. You go home full, you sleep, and tomorrow morning the sun comes up exactly the same as it always does."
Peter looked at the spread in front of him — the kind of meal he'd never have ordered for himself in any version of his life so far — and then at Klein eating across from him with complete unselfconsciousness.
He picked up his knife and fork and cut a piece of steak.
The moment it hit his tongue he went quiet in a different way. Tender, perfectly cooked, a flavor that required no comment.
Food had that quality sometimes. It didn't fix anything, but it steadied the ground under your feet.
Klein raised his glass. "To your dead love, and to damn tomorrow."
Peter huffed a reluctant laugh. Raised his glass and clinked it.
They ate. Soft jazz moved through the restaurant. The clinking of cutlery against porcelain was the only sound between them for a while.
"Klein," Peter said eventually, voice quieter. "About Gwen—"
"I told you before," Klein said, cutting another piece of steak. "I gave you the chance to go first. Now that it didn't work out — don't say I didn't warn you. I'm not going to pretend she's not someone I'd be interested in."
Peter's fork paused.
"But," Klein continued, "I'm not making a move while you're still in pieces about it. That's a line." He pointed his fork across the table. "Find your feet first. Once you're genuinely okay — then we're back to everyone for themselves."
Peter stared at the table for a moment. Then he looked up with an expression that had cycled through several things and landed somewhere surprisingly steady.
"If it ever were you," he said carefully, "I'd want you to treat her well."
Klein looked at him.
"That's either very mature or very strange of you," he said. "Possibly both."
"Klein—"
"I'm not teasing you. I mean it." Klein set his glass down. "And yes. If it ever came to that — I would."
Peter nodded, once. Went back to his steak.
Neither of them said anything else for a while. The jazz played. The food disappeared steadily from the plates.
Klein settled the bill without looking at the total. Peter saw the number and made a sound like someone had briefly stopped his breathing.
"Don't," Klein said, tucking the cash away.
They walked out into the evening. The air outside had turned properly cool, and Peter inhaled it sharply, some of the remaining fog clearing from his eyes.
He glanced at Klein beside him — relaxed, hands in pockets, humming something tuneless — and felt an odd, warm kind of gratitude that he didn't quite have words for.
"Klein. Today — thank you. Seriously. I'm sorry you spent so much—"
"If you finish that sentence I'm leaving you here." Klein raised a hand for a cab. One pulled over immediately. He opened the door and gestured. "In."
Peter got in. Klein followed.
At Peter's building, Klein leaned across and opened the door.
"Sleep. Tomorrow you do what you need to do." He met Peter's eyes. "A man picks things up and puts them down. You'll figure it out."
"Yeah." Peter climbed out, then paused with one hand on the door. "What happened today — Aunt May absolutely cannot know."
"I was never there," Klein said.
Peter nodded solemnly, closed the door, and walked toward his building with the slightly unsteady but more upright gait of someone who had cried themselves empty and then eaten a very good steak.
Klein watched him go, leaned back in the seat, and told the driver his address.
Adolescent drama, he thought, without real annoyance. Exhausting.
The cab merged back into the New York night.
[End of Chapter 14]