The frame stuck halfway the way it always did. Metal groaning against metal until he had to put his whole weight into it. It gave eventually, but not evenly. One side sat lower than the other. A permanent lean to it that no amount of shoving would fix tonight.
That's not great, Lily said from the doorway, arms crossed, watching him fight with furniture like it was the most entertaining thing she'd seen all week. It's fine. It folds flat. Mostly flat. Mostly flat.
Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. You'll live. She came in anyway, sat on the low end to test it, and immediately slid a few inches toward the middle with a laugh she tried to swallow. "Okay, no, I'm going to wake up on the floor. I'll get a book under the leg.
It's a 5-minute fix. It's an 11:00 fix. And you look like you've been fighting that thing since college," she stood, smoothing down the t-shirt of his she'd apparently already claimed as sleepwear. And something about the casualness of it landed harder than it should have. Just for tonight, I'm not going to make it weird.
Lily, I'm serious. I take up basically no space. I don't kick. And you clearly need someone to point out that duct tape is not a furniture repair strategy. He should have said no.
He'd had 8 years to build the sentence. String the words together so they'd come out clean and final the first time he needed them. Instead, what came out was quieter than he meant it to be. One night. One night, she agreed.
Far too easily for someone who'd apparently already made up the bed before he'd even said yes. He lay there afterward with the lights off. A careful foot of space between them that felt like it was doing more work than any actual wall could have, listening to her breathing even out first. The small shift of her turning onto her side, the quiet hum of the building settling around them the way old buildings do. He thought about 8 years ago about a summer night on Noah's back porch that he'd never told anyone about, not even Noah.
Especially not Noah. He thought about the promise he'd made himself walking home from that porch and how easy it had been to keep when she was some safe number of states away and he only ever saw her in photos Noah forwarded without asking. She wasn't states away anymore. She was 3 ft from him, breathing slow, having asked the question so plainly that there hadn't been anywhere to hide from it. Beside you works, he didn't sleep for a long time.
Somewhere past one, half dreaming. He thought he felt her shift closer, just an inch, just enough that if he moved at all, he'd know for certain. He stayed exactly where he was, and told himself that not moving was the same thing as staying strong, and didn't quite believe it, even as he thought it. By morning, she was gone from the bed already, the smell of coffee drifting in from the kitchen, and he lay there a minute longer than necessary, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how a week was supposed to be enough time to undo 8 years. And how two weeks was going to be so much worse.
She'd found his mugs, his good pan, and apparently his entire spice rack by the time he wandered out. Eggs were already plated on the counter, still steaming. And she didn't look up from her laptop screen when she slid one toward him. "Don't get used to it," she said. "I only cook when I'm avoiding something." "What are you avoiding?" "A cover letter." She turned the laptop a few inches like she wasn't sure she wanted him to see it, then let him anyway.
A logo sat at the top of the page. Some museum crest he didn't recognize. The kind of serif font that meant old money and older buildings. There's a curatorial fellowship opening up. 6 months working under one of the people whose books I basically learned this job from.
That's a big deal. It's in Copenhagen. She said it fast. Almost careless. The way people say things they've been carrying around too long.
Applications close in a couple months. I probably won't even get an interview. You will. You don't know that. I know you, he said, and regretted how easily it came out.
How much history was sitting underneath four words that simple. She glanced at him a beat too long before going back to her screen. And neither of them said anything else about it, though. The laptop stayed angled toward him a little longer than it needed to. His phone buzzed against the counter before the silence could do anything with itself.
Noah's name lit up the screen and Ethan almost didn't answer it which told him something he didn't love about his own head that morning. She survived the night. Noah asked no hello same as always. Pull outs broken. She took the actual bed.
A pause on the line short but not nothing. And you took the couch obviously. Just checking. Noah's voice had gone carefully light. The tone of a man choosing not to poke at something on purpose.
Plumber called this morning. 2 weeks. Not one. Sorry, man. Ethan looked across the kitchen at Lily, who was very deliberately not looking back at him.
Spoon halfway to her mouth. Ears a little pink at the edges like she could hear both sides of the call from 3 ft away. Two weeks. He did the math on that the same way he'd done the math in the doorway the night before, and it came out just as bad. Two weeks, Ethan repeated, mostly for her benefit.
You're a saint, Noah said. Seriously, I owe you one. You owe me several. Don't let her talk you into anything dumb. She gets bored easy.
She'll start rearranging your furniture out of sheer spite by Thursday. I heard that. Lily called out loud enough for the phone to catch it. And Noah laughed on the other end. Easy and unaware.
The way a person laughs when they don't know they're standing on the exact spot where the ground is thinnest. The market on Wednesday hadn't been the plan. Ethan had gone out for coffee filters and come back 40 minutes later with a bag of peaches he didn't need. And Lily walking half a step ahead of him. Sunglasses pushed up into her hair, narrating the produce stalls like she was giving a tour of a museum.
"This is a very serious tomato," she said, holding one up like evidence. "Look at the structural integrity. You're unwell. I'm hungry and you wouldn't let me get the donut. You got the donut.