Esposito had a new couch.

Sure enough, Joey had kept his word about getting the detective some new furniture. A few days after dropping the kid off, Esposito answered a knock at his door only to see Joey and an older boy wearing moving gloves. They walked with him around a few blocks looking for what Ryan had once called "roadkill", and despite Esposito's inhibitions, they actually did end up finding a decent blue couch on Park Avenue.

It fit in his living room well, and after a thorough vacuuming and mental pep talk ("Dammit Esposito, you chase murderers every day, you can sit on a friggin' couch."), he was able to relax on it with a beer and flip on the TV.

And now, because it was late and he was lonely, his thoughts narrowed in on Lanie. He didn't know if she was working tonight, but it was easier to picture her testing tissue samples in the morgue than out on a date with some new guy.

Then there was Ryan, who for all his snarky comments and naivety was really growing up, getting ready to start a family even as he dealt with his own apprehensiveness. And Javier was happy for him, really he was, happy that his best friend was settled down and starting up this little domestic adventure, happy that he'd be an uncle, happy that things were going well for once. There was, however, a small but definite part of him that felt just a little jealous.

Then there was Castle and Beckett. It would be enough for Esposito to have just one single friend, someone who could agree with him when life just sucked, someone who could go drinking with him and really be drinking for the same reasons, but no, what he had were two giggly coworkers whose biggest problem was deciding what movie to watch. Despite what he'd said earlier, Esposito felt he really would watch Valentine's Day- hell, he'd watch The Notebook- if he had someone to watch it with.

Ryan was starting a family, "Caskett" was still acting annoyingly in love, Lanie… was Lanie.

And Esposito had a new couch.