The living room smelled like cheap weed and expensive cologne, a paradox fitting for Thomas Jefferson. He leaned back on the couch, long legs stretched out, a half-smoked joint dangling between his fingers. Across from him, John Laurens exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling.

“You ever gonna tell me what’s up with you and Hamilton?” Jefferson asked, voice dripping with amusement.

John snorted, rubbing a hand through his messy blond curls. “What do you mean?”

Jefferson shot him a look. “Don’t play dumb, Laurens. I see the way he looks at you. Like you’re his next essay—something he’s obsessed with but also trying really hard not to screw up.”

John laughed, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes. “Alex looks at everything like that.”

“Maybe,” Jefferson said, taking another drag. “But I don’t think he’s ever written love letters to ‘everything.’”

John didn’t answer, just stared at the smoke swirling in the dim light. He’d kept the letters, tucked away in a shoebox under his bed. Pages filled with Alex’s frantic scrawl, words as passionate as the man himself. He still wasn’t sure if it was stupid or romantic that he couldn’t throw them away.

“You ever gonna tell him?” Jefferson pressed.

John sighed, tipping his head back against the couch. “He knows.”

And he did. Maybe not in words, but in the way John always pulled Alex’s hood up when he forgot, protecting his ridiculous ginger hair from the rain. In the way Alex stole John’s fries but let him sip his coffee in return. In the way John didn’t mind when Alex talked too much, and Alex didn’t mind when John didn’t talk at all.

Yeah. He knew.

Jefferson smirked. “Man, you two are a tragedy waiting to happen.”

John blew out another slow breath. “I know.”