but enough about that

Lucanis, of course, was thrilled at the prospect of hosting all their friends. Of getting to show off his garden that's fully taken over the side yard, and cooking a whole meal for them. He officially moved in two weeks ago, but if they're honest, he was basically living here most of the summer anyway. They're already talking about expanding his garden next year, and a potential addition to the house, to make it a bit more theirs.

"Okay, I just moved the cooler to the shade because all the ice was threatening to melt out there," she says as she comes into the kitchen.

Lucanis has an array of pizza toppings laid out on the counter, is busy getting his homemade sourdough pizza into rounds to throw on the grill once everyone has made the pizzas they desire. "Did you get the grill on?"

She nods. "Of course." Spite swims lazily from his spot on the counter, and Aphra watches him with interest, her ears at full attention.

Lucanis glances at the clock over the oven and then continues working. "Mierda, I should have started all this ten minutes sooner."

"Put me to work," Camina says. "What can I do?"

The look he gives her is fond exasperation. She has certainly learned a few things by spending time with him in the kitchen and watching him try new recipes. He's spent a whole month perfecting his grilled pizzas this summer, but she is still rather hopeless in the kitchen.

"You can set out all the packaged ingredients," he says, mouth an upturned grin.

"Are you sure you feel confident delegating such an important task, chef?"

He passes behind her on the way to the sink, but she feels his hand snake around her middle. "Calling me chef would imply that you ever follow my instructions, and we both know you don't."

She leans a little into him. "I thought that was part of my charm."

His chuckle is bright in the kitchen. "You're right, it is charming when you burn the food."

"That was one time!"

"Yeah, because I haven't given you the opportunity to do it since." She tosses the nearest towel in his direction, which he easily bats away, but they're both laughing now.

And then their friends begin to arrive. Aphra is thrilled at all the potential for attention from everyone who enters. Emmrich and Will arrive first, carrying a salad in a gigantic multicolored bowl. Davrin, Bellara, and Neve with drinks tucked into reusable totes and Davrin carrying a twelve-pack. Harding and Taash are late, but no one is surprised or bothered since they're too busy eating the bruschetta Lucanis made with tomatoes from his garden.

"This all looks just wonderful, Lucanis," Emmrich says as the group makes several pizzas, sprinkling toppings on their sections.

"And for dessert, he's got peach cobbler," Camina says.

The entire group 'ooohs' at that. "You're ruining the surprise," Lucanis replies with a shake of his head that does nothing to obfuscate how proud he is that everyone is excited for his food.

Camina watches him cook pizzas on the grill while their friends sit and talk and drink together on the patio, settling at the table or following Aphra through the grass. Emmrich asks Lucanis about work, and it no longer twists her gut to think about how Lucanis's time at the school district is rapidly coming to an end.

The audit is winding down. By mid-September, it will be over, and both he and Rana know their time is running out. Rana already has something lined up at a local nonprofit, so she'll land on her feet. Lucanis, meanwhile, plans to take a beat, reassess, to figure out where his heart wants to go next. He's never had that luxury. Whenever they talk about it, she can hear the uncertainty beneath his careful optimism. The fear of too much empty time, the fear of falling back instead of moving forward. He's more worried than she is; she'll be by his side either way.

Love, she's learned, isn't all grand declarations or impossible sacrifices. Sometimes, it's simply taking turns carrying the weight. It's listening and making space. It's buying something for the dog or helping the other person plant a garden. This love is quiet, gentle. If the road ahead feels at all uncertain, she simply remembers she's not alone in it.

A box waits in the kitchen. The books inside are nothing fancy, spiral-bound copies from the district printer, their covers plain and practical. But when she looks at them, her chest tightens anyway. Varric's book. And hers. Finished at last.

Lucanis is the only person who has read it. He'd called it phenomenal. She suspects he would have found something kind to say no matter what was on those pages, but she chooses to believe him. Some gifts are too precious to examine too closely.

She's not sure what happens to it now. Maybe nothing. Maybe it only lives here, passed hand to hand among the people who loved him. That feels like enough. She wants them to have it, that piece of him she's gotten to sit with this summer. To laugh with and disagree with and extend those through lines of his thinking into something that is also hers.

She'll hand them out at the end of the night, just before everyone leaves. No speeches or long discussions. She doesn't even care if they actually read it. Maybe they won't. But they'll have them, something he touched, something he left behind.

The pizzas have all just come off the grill, and everyone is gathered around them, laughing and talking over one another as they fight over pieces and cheese stretches out over plates. The evening hums with life, with friendship. It feels so reminiscent of those dinners on Varric's back deck that she almost wants to glance around, almost feels that if she looks hard enough, she'll see him just there. He'd be proud, she thinks, of the way they've survived it all. How even the worst years can't quite stamp out these ordinary joys.

This won't be the last hard school year in the same way it wasn't the first, but still, here they are, all of them excited for whatever the next might bring.

She's standing back, a bit apart from it all when Lucanis finds her. Of course, he does. His hand rests gently on her waist, and he presses a kiss to the side of her head.

"Come on," he says softly. "Let's join everyone."

And so she does.