After, we lie there, still naked, the sheets twisted under our legs and the city reflected in the window like a dead TV channel.
Vincent rests his head on my shoulder, breathes in slow, then starts with the questions.
“Did you ever think Darius would freeze like that? After the shooting?”
It’s always like this. No small talk, no transition. Just a straight line to the heart of the thing.
“I don’t know,” I say, because what the fuck else is there.
He hums, low, like he’s tasting the answer. “Was he always so… contained?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s his thing.”
Vincent doesn’t write it down. He just nods, closes his eyes, and keeps going.
“Who on the team actually liked Cap? Like, really?”
I roll over, half on my side, half turned away. “Everybody,” I say, but he hears the lie in it.
“Come on,” he says. “There’s always a rivalry. You were both fighting for first line, right?”
I stare at the ceiling. “Not really. Cap was captain, and I was the joke. You don’t compete with someone like that. You just orbit them.”
Vincent slides his hand across my stomach, rests it just above my hip. “You’re not a joke, Ash.”
I almost laugh. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that.”
He kisses my shoulder. “That’s why I like you.”
It’s supposed to be reassuring, but it sounds like a research note.
The questions don’t stop.
“How did you find out about Caleb?”
“What did Darius say to you that night?”
“Who told the coach first?”
Every answer I give, he files away. Sometimes he repeats it, like he wants to hear how it sounds out loud, how it fits with the last thing I said.
After the third or fourth round, I catch him reaching for his phone, thumbing something in before setting it facedown on the nightstand. He’s quick about it, never long enough to read, just atap or a flick, but it’s always after I say something that makes the back of my neck itch.
The weird part is, I don’t even care. Not enough to stop coming here, anyway.
In the morning, he makes espresso in a chrome contraption that looks like it was designed for astronauts.
He drinks it black, then brushes his teeth with surgical precision and heads out for a run before work.
I dress, find my own way out, and sometimes I’ll see him lacing up his shoes in the lobby, nodding at me like we’re old college friends who hooked up once at a party and now pretend it’s a secret.
I don’t tell anyone.
Not Dr. Sharma, not Maya, not even the group chat with Tommy and Raz, who would never believe I could land a guy who reads The New Yorker for fun.
I try to talk to Vincent about other things, about the book I’m reading, about the bakery, about how I once nearly lost a finger to a bagel slicer.
He lets me, for exactly thirty seconds, before pivoting back to the real topic.
