She was still standing on the strip of grass next to her car, trying to unkink her lower back, when a door in Max’s building opened, spilling light across the courtyard, and then Max was walking toward her.
“Hey,” she said, eloquently.
“Hey,” he answered. His hair was pulled back in a bun, a few strands drifting down the back of his neck, and he was smiling. “How was the drive?”
“Long and boring,” she said, and shook her arms out. “Did you know platypuses are only about eighteen inches long and weigh three or four pounds?”
Max looked very thoughtful for a moment. “Huh,” he finally said. “I thought they were, like, Labrador-sized.”
“They’re smaller than cats,” Sloane said, opening the trunk of her car and pulling out her overnight bag. “And the males have venomous spurs on their hind— I can carry that.”
“I know,” Max said, hefting her bag over his shoulder. “My place is the second one on the left, with the skeleton on the door.”
“You know Halloween’s over, right?” Sloane asked, following him as she aimed her key at her car to lock it.
“What makes you think it’s there for Halloween?” Max asked, and led them up the steps.
Sloane had assumed she’d drop off her stuff and then they’d go get pizza and tacos or something, but the smell in Max’s apartment stopped her in her tracks.
“Did you cook, or is that a weird candle?” she asked, leaving her shoes by the door.
“Do they make tomato-sauce scented candles?”
“I’m sure someone does.”
“I cooked,” he said, over his shoulder, barefoot now, walking past a couch and depositing her bag on it. “You’re hungry, right?”
Sloane’s stomach took the opportunity to remind her that she’d had In-N-Out for lunch five hours ago and nothing but pretzel sticks since.
“I could eat.”
“Good,” he said, and waved at his kitchen table, where there was a plate of cheese and crackers and a plate of sliced peppers and hummus. “Have a snack. Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
Crash at my place, Sloane thought, scooping hummus onto a slice of bell pepper. I hate it when Jess is right.
“This looks great,” she said aloud. “I like your place. What’s for dinner?” Every sentence felt weird in her mouth, so she solved that problem by putting more hummus in it.
“Bolognese and salad,” he said, and shrugged, like it was no big deal. Sloane wasn’t an expert, but she was pretty sure it was a medium deal, at least. “Don’t tell my grandmother I made it in the crockpot. She’d wonder where she went wrong.”
It was a small kitchen in a small apartment, so Max was all of six feet away, standing at the stove, and he looked over at her and grinned.
“I could give her a list if she wants one,” Sloane offered, eating a cracker.
“Good luck with that. She’s been dead for six years.”
Sloane didn’t say anything, just slathered more cheese onto a cracker and put it in her mouth, watching Max until he looked at her again.
“What?”
“And being dead prevents you from communicating in any measurable fashion?” Sloane asked. She was sitting in one of the two chairs around the table.
“Yes, because she’s not a ghost,” Max said easily, dumping pasta into a big pot of water. “If she were, she’d be haunting me about my cooking skills, among other things. Like why I haven’t given her great-grandchildren yet.”
Sloane couldn’t tell what was wrong with his cooking skills, but maybe she’d figure it out. “I take it your grandparents weren’t hippies?”
“Definitely not,” he said, stirring the pot. “Were yours?”
“My dad’s parents were,” Sloane offered. “They met in San Francisco in the sixties but had to move back and get married when my grandma got pregnant with my uncle.”
