“I need to make lunches for tomorrow,” her mother said in a rush.
“Okay. Love you. Talk to you Sunday,” Caroline said. She hung up. She’d forgotten where she was for a moment. In the bathroom of the sushi restaurant, Adrian left behind at the table. Familiar guilt erased the rest of her embarrassment about the sushi.
Okay, Caroline, focus, she told herself in the same way she would if she were ad-in at a set point.It’s just some stupid fish. You can handle some stupid fish. Other people think it’s delicious.
She put away her phone and rubbed her cheeks until she felt like her face was in a normal configuration again.
When she wobbled back out of the bathroom, Adrian wasn’t in his seat. She had a brief moment of concern that he had taken the opportunity to leave, but then she spotted him in the corner of the restaurant farthest from both their table and the table of his... clients? Customers? Theother couple was watching avidly as Adrian spoke in a low, angry tone into his phone.
Caroline took her seat, feeling as though the evening had gone hopelessly sideways. As soon as she was seated, the server came over with a large plate to set in front of Caroline’s sushi.
“Chicken teriyaki,” she said in a low, sympathetic voice.
“Oh, I didn’t order—”
“Your boyfriend ordered for you,” the server said, nodding at Adrian where he stood across the restaurant, shoulders hunched and face tilted to the front window.
Caroline winced as she looked at the plain grilled chicken on white rice before her. It was probably the sushi restaurant equivalent of buttered noodles: food for picky toddlers.
“Thanks,” Caroline managed, unable to reject the dish. At least a single person thought it was plausible Adrian was her boyfriend.
She curled her hands into fists, then resolutely speared a sushi roll with her fork. She was going to learn to love this fish if it killed her. She’d come too far to be beaten by lesser vertebrates.
Adrian had begun to pace, and when he drifted closer, Caroline made out the last of his conversation.
“—more than a couple days!” His voice was furious.
Caroline got down three more pieces of sushi, drenched in enough soy sauce to pickle a cow, as Adrian finished his phone call and shoved his phone into his trouser pocket. He wiped a palm over his forehead, looking out the window as he gathered himself. When he turned to Caroline, his face was barely on the grim side of neutral.
Caroline didn’t pretend not to have noticed when hesat back down and stared at his remaining dinner. In a way, it was freeing, not being the only one with problems.
“Sorry,” Adrian said, but didn’t offer any other explanation.
“Is everything okay?” Caroline asked for the second time in ten minutes.
His cheek pulled to the side in dismay.
“Yes. But I need to reschedule our trip to the Haymarket. I need to move some things Saturday morning, and that’s the next time my roommate is off work.”
“No worries,” she said quietly, wondering if Adrian would prefer she inquire further or not. When he didn’t say anything else, she asked, “You’re moving to a new apartment?”
He shook his head. “No. I—” His soft blue eyes flicked up at her, as though weighing how much he ought to tell her.
Caroline paused with her fork in another sushi roll, waiting attentively.
Adrian sighed. “I moved out of the house I shared with my ex a few weeks ago. She just told me to take out everything I left behind by Saturday, or she’s putting it on the curb.”
That sounded pretty bitchy to Caroline, but she didn’t want to presume what the circumstances of the breakup had been. Maybe Adrian had done something terrible, though he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who did terrible things.
“Do you need any help moving?” she asked.
Adrian waved away the offer, but he took his phone back out of his pocket.
“Please excuse me for being very rude though,” hesaid, tapping the screen with his thumbs. “I need to reserve a truck. If I can even get one for Saturday.”
Caroline wondered again whether she was sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted, but she didn’t believe that Adrian had so much free labor that he wouldn’t want more help.
“How much stuff are you moving?”
