Maybe if I’d been clothed and caffeinated, I would have done better. But I wasn’t.
So I stood there. Slack-jawed. A frozen, buffering buffoon.
I towel off, pull on sweats and a hoodie, and limp—God, I’m limping—into the kitchen.
Coffee. Water.Ibuprofen. I line them up like communion and take all three. The clock on the stove says 6:48.
These forty-eight minutes have been the longest three days of my life.
My phone is on the counter where I abandoned it last night. Ok, fine—yesterday afternoon. I pick it up and stare at the black screen, as if the thing will tell me how to fix any of this. When it wakes, there’s a text from Dexter from after we fled Nico’s:
Dex, 11:32 a.m.: you need me?
There’s also a text from Tori, time-stamped last night, that I didn’t see:
Tori, 11:31 p.m.: Sorry I had to leave early today. Had some stuff to handle. I’ll be by first thing tomorrow morning.
Would you look at that. She called ahead.
If I had paid attention to my phone instead of blocking out the world to drown my sorrows in whiskey, well, it’s safe to assume Lois wouldn’t have seen my asshole this morning.
I type and erase three different drafts of apologies. The first is too defensive, the second too pathetic, the third too… I don’t know.
I hate all of them. I set the phone down and stare at the cooling coffee until the skin on top shimmers. My head throbs once in solidarity.
The doorbell rings again.
“No,” I yell at the door. “Absolutely not. Go away.”
It rings again.
I shuffle to the door more carefully this time, crack it open, and there—because apparently the universe likes to revel in my humiliation—is Lois.
This time onmyporch, a grocery bag in her hands, a knit scarfthrown over her robe like she’s decided apparel is a buffet and you can add whatever you want to an outfit. Mixed genres allowed.
“I brought you a towel,” she says, blithe. “And muffins.”
I blink. “Muffins?”
“Blueberry. Your favorite.”
We have never, not once, discussed my preferences in muffins. “Thank you, Lois.”
“And a towel,” she says again, pressing the bag into my hands.
I peek inside. Towel, muffins, and—for reasons beyond me—a travel-size bottle of aloe.
“Figured you might need that,” she says, eyes perfectly innocent.
I close my eyes and accept that I now live in a daytime comedy written by a benevolent assassin.
“You are a saint.”
“You looked distressed,” she says, as if that covers the spectacle of my ass and nuts to our entire street.
“Also, there’s a piece of glass sticking out of your hair.”
She reaches up, plucks it, and drops it into my palm like a fairy godmother handing over a crystal.
