He wasn’t a fraud. He was just new. And the raft—the whole messy, glorious, argumentative, loving fleet of rafts—had a spot saved for him.

Leo was new. Well, “Leo” was new. He’d spent twenty-nine years answering to a name that felt like a coat two sizes too small. Three months on testosterone had roughened the edges of his voice and salted a faint shadow across his jaw. He stood by the bar, a thumb hooked through a belt loop, watching.

The jukebox switched to a thumping house remix. Jules the bartender slid a glass of something pink and fizzy toward Leo. “On the house,” she said. “Welcome home.”