“You are?”
“Of course I am, silly.”I wasn’t sure the last time Bobby had called mesilly—if ever—but before I could latch onto that, he settled on the bed next to me and grabbed his phone.“Look at this.What do you think?”
Thiswas a listing for a studio apartment in Silverlake.I blinked blearily—from what I could make out sans glasses, it had a brick accent wall and a lot of smeary somethings.A powerful squint brought the rent into focus, and I said a few words that you probably weren’t allowed to say in Silverlake.
“I know,” Bobby said, “but this is an investment.”
“Bobby,thisis a college education.”
“We can afford it,” he said with a slightly-too-forceful laugh.“A Work in Progressis still selling well.”
“For now.”
“And if something changes,” Bobby said, “we can revisit it.”
“There’s got to be a cheaper neighborhood.Wait, what am I saying?Bobby, I haven’t even signed the contract, and even if I do, I’m not moving to L.A.—”
“Silverlake would be a great spot,” Bobby broke in.“It’s very LGBTQ friendly.Or if you wanted to be closer to the studios, there are some places in Culver City I looked at.”
“What is happening right now?When did you look at them?You didresearch?”
“Last night,” Bobby said, his tone offhand.But he got up and moved across the room.“I was excited.”
“Uh huh.”
“And there are a lot of great nonstop flights between Portland and LAX, so it’d be easy for you to come back for the weekends.”
“Bobby.”
“Honestly, they’re way more affordable than I realized.”
“Bobby.”
“A lot of these places go fast, though, so we should probably see about putting down a deposit.”
“Bobby!”
He jolted like I’d startled him.And then, running a hand through his hair, he smiled.
“I haven’t decided anything yet,” I said.“Andthisis my home.Here.With you.”
“I know.”He took a breath and said again, a little more convincingly, “I know, Dash.I’m just happy for you.And I wanted to, you know, help.In fact, I wanted to—I was wondering if we could go out to dinner tomorrow.To celebrate.I know you’ve got your conference, but I thought it would be fun if it was just us.”
All this delivered with an intensity and a painfully bad attempt at casualness that suggested—what?That it wasn’t about having fun; that much was obvious.
“Um, yeah.Sure.”
“I know you’re busy.”
“Bobby, I have to eat dinner.We can get dinner.”
“And everything with Vivienne.”
“God, I don’t even want tothinkabout that.”But then I immediately said, “Everyone at the conference knows she’s dead.Did you get that?That’s why Julian showed up here last night.He was too polite to say he wanted to see if I’d been arrested.”
Bobby came back to the bed.He rubbed my leg through the blanket.And he said, “You want to investigate.”
“I don’twantto.”
