I do.
Obviously.
AJ eats with the focused gratitude of a man who has just remembered he has a body. He looks rumpled, his hair still refusing to lie flat.
The clean-shaven thing still suits him.
I wish it did not.
“So,” he says eventually. “Non-work conversation.”
I glance up. “Is that a rule?”
“A request.”
“You’re asking me for non-work conversation after a night shift.”
“I feel that gives us an advantage.”
“How?”
“Lowered defences. Less ability to lie convincingly.”
“That sounds like something a manipulative journalist would say.”
“That is exactly why I’m declaring it openly.”
“Very ethical.”
“I’m trying.”
I take a bite of toast to hide my smile.
“What do you want to know?”
“Something ordinary,” he says. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
“Laundry.”
“That’s bleak.”
“It’s honest.”
“Something that isn’t laundry.”
I think about giving him a nothing answer. Walks. Reading. Seeing my sister. All true, all safe.
But he is looking at me as if he actually wants the answer, and I am tired enough to let him have a little more than that.
“I swim when I can,” I say. “Walk. Complain about inaccurate emergency scenes on television. Read bad thrillers.”
“Of course you do.”
“I like guessing which woman should not go into the basement.”
“And is she usually aware she should not go into the basement?”
“Never. That’s why I shout at her.”
