“The donkeys? They are living together, I think,” Gence responds.
“Of course they are! I already knew that,o burrë. I askedçka dreqin po bajnëup there?”
“Too much up and down,” Gence mutters.
“The man is a pervert. What I found in the dryer that day…bo bo… And someone said he worships the devil. I like the girl better. She tried to kill you, so she’s okay in my book.” His wife’s smile sets Gence’s belly to jiggling with his silent laugh.
After the purple monstrosity was found in the dryer, he’d had the idea to drive the fifth-floor occupants out. One of them. Both of them. Didn’t matter. He needed peace. So that broken toilet? Two days without fixing. And maybe a dishwasher mysteriously breaks just after Gence was in the apartment to fix something else. He’d even taken all the girl’s underwear out of the wash once and thrown them in the dumpster out back before his wife could find him with them and get the wrong idea.
Who stays in a building where one of your neighbors has the disgusting habit of stealing underwear? No one normal.
But they stayed. And they fought. And they gave Gence more gray hairs. And now…together?
He inspects his own wife of forty years, each line on her face reflecting a shared laugh or cry. Are they really so different from thegomarëupstairs?
Gence shuffles along to the kitchen and presses a soft kiss to his wife’s forehead. “Love is very stupid,” he grumbles. And a profound gratitude flows through him as his wife turns to give him a proper kiss.
Zoya presses something against his chest. Her copy ofThePirate Duke’s Revenge. Gence eagerly opens it. “Finally! You read like abreshkë, too slow.”
“I take my time.” She waggles her eyebrows. “And you’ll want to take your time with page one hundred forty-one.”
Gence opens to the page and then slowly looks up, his cheeks red. Love is stupid. But it is also very, very good.
