The elevator opened on four, and my key was already in my hand. When I passed Pratt's door, everything was quiet. There was no sound of TV or footsteps coming through the door.
A thin ray of light leaked out from underneath.
It wasn't there while he was gone. I checked while pretending I wasn't checking.
It was one forty-five am, and I was trying to decide what to do.
I stepped up to Pratt's door and knocked once, no rhythm to it.
He opened the door. It wasn't immediate, but it was fast enough to know he hadn't been far away. He still wore his coat.
The counter behind him was clear, but he'd turned the lamp on. He looked at me how he always did: like I was a problem he'd decided he didn't mind having.
"You're back," I said.
"Yes."
"Good road trip?"
"Good enough."
No wasted words on either side. I'd learned early on—Pratt's economy wasn't coldness; it was his style of using words. He said the thing and stopped when it was done.
I knew how to open a conversation, find the angle, apply a little pressure, and let it swing. I had a catalog of ways in. Some of them were funny. Some were even disarming. A few of them earned praise. I'd been running them so long they didn't feel like moves anymore. They were instinctual.
With Pratt, none of them seemed right.
I tilted my head slightly.
"I was going to make a whole thing of this," I said. "But you're going to see through it, anyway."
He shifted his weight to the other foot.
"You want to come to mine?" I asked. "Not for soup or any particular reason."
I didn't deliver a joke. I had one ready, a callback to the lockout tax, but I kept it to myself.
Pratt looked at me. Then he reached back, grabbed his keys off the hook, and headed for the hallway.
We walked into my condo, and I immediately realized I should have staged it better.
I waved an arm and said, "Welcome to… this," like I was revealing a bargain-basementPrice Is Rightshowcase.
“For the record,” I said, “this is not my best work.”
There was a jacket on a chair and a book face down on the coffee table. I didn't move either of them. Pratt came in and shut the door behind him.
Every other time Pratt had been in my place there'd been a reason attached—soup, pasta, or a lockout. There was always something we were planning to do.
Not tonight. At least not that either of us said out loud.
I sat first on one end of the couch, foot tucked under me. He sat at the other end. Not far, but separate.
Neither of us spoke. There was no music. I forgot to turn it on.
I heard a faint wheeze in my breathing. Could he hear that?
Pratt's hands were on his thighs, relaxed, not fidgeting. I watched him not watching me.
