"I'll be back around six. If you need anything—"
"I won't need anything. Go."
I went.
But all the way to work, I kept thinking about him in my kitchen, wearing my clothes, horrified by my single bar of soap and his complete inability to make eggs.
What have you gotten yourself into?
I still didn't have an answer.
Chapter 5
Tobias
The door clicked shut behind Vance, and suddenly the apartment felt enormous.
I stood in the kitchen, holding a mug of cooling coffee, listening to the silence. No footsteps in the hallway. No distant voices. No one watching to see what I would do next.
For the first time in twenty-six years, I was completely alone.
Now what?
I didn't have an answer. I'd spent my entire life being told where to go, what to do, how to behave. Every hour of every day hadbeen scheduled, managed, optimized. The idea of having a whole day with nothing required of me was terrifying.
Also exhilarating.
I finished my coffee, set the mug in the sink, and stood there, staring at it, unsure of what to do next. Did I wash it? Leave it? I found dish soap under the sink, washed the mug by hand, dried it with a paper towel, and put it back where I'd found it.
One small task. Done.
The sense of accomplishment was absurd and undeniable.
I spent the morning exploring the apartment—really looking this time, now that I was alone.
Vance's living habits were... interesting.
The couch cushions were slightly crooked, as if he never bothered to straighten them after sitting. A pair of socks had been kicked under the coffee table and forgotten. The TV remote sat atop a stack of unopened mail that looked weeks old.
In the kitchen, the dish towel hung crooked on its hook. The salt and pepper shakers sat on opposite sides of the counter for no apparent reason. A chipped coffee mug occupied a space in the cabinet next to perfectly good ones.
I opened the cabinet where he kept spices.
There was only salt.
That was it. Just salt. One container of table salt, half empty, looking lonely on an otherwise bare shelf.
I stared at it for a long moment.
"How does anyone cook with just salt?" I asked the empty kitchen. The kitchen didn't answer.
I checked the other cabinets. Instant oatmeal. Canned soup. Protein bars. A bag of rice that looked like it had been there since the building was constructed.
This wasn't a kitchen. This was a survival bunker.
The bedroom was the same. Clothes draped over the back of a chair—not dirty, just not put away. The closet door hung open. Shoes scattered on the floor instead of lined up.
None of it was dirty. Just... lived in. Careless. The home of someone who didn't care about appearances because no one was watching.
