“Works for me,” he said.
He agreed to all of it without a word of pushback. The catch arrived when I found the spare blanket already in his hand: the floor was between the bed and the door, and that had been where he was going the entire time. Whatever I’d beenarranging, the only item on his actual list had never been on mine.
He moved to the window to check the lock, the sight lines—quick, thorough—and I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for my phone out of pure habit. Nothing. I sat with my hand in empty air for a moment.
There wasn’t a version of being in this room that didn’t involve being fully aware of him. He was at the window and I was on the bed and we were separated by approximately eight feet of teal carpet and I was aware of every one of those feet in a way that wasn’t useful information and very difficult to stop generating.
He turned from the window. His attention landed on me for a fraction of a second before he went for the spare blanket—there and gone before it committed, a complete sentence I caught and couldn’t unread.
He went to the floor. I went to the bag.
The Clairol box was at the top. I pulled the flannel over my head, dropped it on the bed, and held the box up.
“I could do it tonight,” I said. “Get it done.”
He had his phone out already—his phone, not mine, a separate conversation for when I had more leverage. “I’ll order food. You’ve got time.”
“Chinese,” I said. “If that’s an option.”
“What do you want?”
I considered. “Lo mein, but I’d like to know if they do fresh noodles or dried, because that changes the texture significantly, and if they have a thinner gauge I’d prefer that. White meat chicken—not dark meat, it gets stringy. Sauce on the side so I can calibrate. The vegetables should be barely cooked, something green if there’s a seasonal option. Spice level: ask them for a four, but clarify that I mean a four calibrated for someone who regularly eats at Nobu, not a diner four. And extra chopsticks. Isthere a soup option? Something light, like a hot and sour, but ask if the broth is—”
“So lo mein,” Rafe said.
I opened my mouth.
“With chicken,” he said. And called in the order.
I took the Clairol box and went to the bathroom.
The instructions were on the box. I read all of them. This wasn’t something I normally did, but I was in a fluorescent-lit bathroom the size of a coat closet with no Bree, no Bastian, no anything—just me and a plastic bottle of developer and the indignity of a woman who charged five figures a post about to cover her individually toned highlights with something that had probably cost four dollars at a thrift store.
I applied it. I didn’t have a timer. I counted in my head—not the same thing—and came out of the bathroom with the dye in and a towel wrapped around my head.
He was on the floor. The TV had three channels: a weather report for a city we weren’t in, an infomercial for something called the TurboChop that could allegedly dice an onion in under four seconds, and The Love Boat.
We watched The Love Boat.
I’d like the record to reflect that the television selected this. I had no input.
The opening notes were playing—the exact theme song you’d choose if you wanted to telegraph, with no subtlety whatsoever, exactly what kind of show was about to happen between strangers thrown together in close quarters.
“Every week,” I said, “complete strangers get on a boat and fall in love.”
“Is that a problem?” Rafe said.
“It’s a premise.”
He considered the screen. “Seems to work out for them.”
I fixed on the ceiling.
“If you say ‘you look like a brunette’ I will find a way to make this significantly worse for both of us.”
The corner of his mouth moved. Just that—a small betrayal, gone before it committed. “I was going to say you look hungry.”
“That,” I said, “is what you were going to say.”
