Chapter 2: What She Saw

“I got home about an hour and a half ago,” Amber said. “Dylan dropped me. I was quiet because I assumed you were asleep or dead, which are adjacent states for you lately. I came around the corner, and there was a man on our couch, with half his body covered under a throw designed for decoration, not a person. He had one of the pillows off your bed. I stood there long enough to decide whether I was going to scream or start swinging.”

“You did neither.”

“I am growing as a human. Do not get used to it.” She tipped her mug. “I was shocked. Not that you cannot have men over. This is your apartment too. You pay half the rent and create at least eighty percent of the chaos. Usually, though, common courtesy is that if a man is staying over, he is in your bed. The couch is for movies and the occasional emotional collapse. It is not a guest room.”

I looked down and wanted the floor to open. It declined.

“He woke up when I turned the kitchen light on,” she said. “To his credit, he did not pretend this was normal. He sat up, looked like a man who had slept in his clothes, and told me the short version before I could invent a worse one.”