I watched Kieran's hands come to rest on the open case. His composure cracked along a seam that Pratt, of all people had found without trying.
"Thank you," Kieran said. His voice held. His eyes didn't.
Pratt nodded once. Left the kitchen. Went back to moving boxes.
Later, when Rook and Varga were arguing in the hallway about whether the couch fit through the door at its current angle, Kieran went still in the kitchen.
"What?" I asked.
He showed me. A text from an unknown number.Hey Kieran, Danny Moreau from the Tribune. Hearing you and Donnelly moved in together. Any comment?
The screen glowed between us.
I looked at it and then looked at him.
"Together?" I asked.
"Together."
I picked up the phone. My thumb hesitated over the keyboard for half a second, and then I typed:
Heath:This is Heath Donnelly. We're not making a statement today. When we do, it'll be on our terms. Have a good weekend.
I showed him before I sent it. He read it and nodded.
I sent it. Set the phone facedown on the counter. My hand wasn't entirely steady when I pulled it back. He saw that.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Okay."
Behind us, Varga was explaining to Pratt why Fernando the fern needed to face east.
That night, after we'd flattened the last box and settled the last argument about shelf placement, we sat on the floor with our backs against the couch. Grad school brochures lay in a neat stack on the coffee table. Scripps. URI. Miami. Dog-eared and annotated, the pages soft from handling. Beside them, the contract paperwork.
Kieran tapped the top brochure with one finger. "Deferred. Two years. Not abandoned."
"Same," I said, nodding toward the contract. "Two years in Chicago."
He studied my face. "You're sure?"
I leaned back and stretched my legs out, feeling the pull in my hip where Boston's defenseman had leaned into me along the boards.
"It's not either/or anymore," I said.
"We've got two years," he said. "Enough time to get a table."
"A table?"
"A real one. Not a folding table, Heath. Something you eat at."
"I know what a table is."
"Do you? Because your kitchen had a breakfast bar and a cutting board and nothing else."
"The breakfast bar was a table."
"The breakfast bar was a ledge with ambition."
