Page 79 of We Are Just Us

He read it once. Hit send. Done.

His stomach lurched, not satisfaction, not relief. Closer to vertigo. The feeling of jumping before he’d checked how far down the ground was.

He closed the laptop. The room went dark.

On the floor near the couch, Mabel shifted in her sleep, legs twitching through some dream. Kieran watched her—the rise and fall of her side, the soft snuffling sounds she made.

Hank was pressed against the base of the couch, one paw resting on Kieran’s foot. Warm. Trusting. Asleep in the way only a dog who feels safe can sleep.

Kieran leaned his head back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling. Silence.

The host would probably respond by morning. Then he’d have options. A plan. An exit.

Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do about all of it.

TWENTY-FOUR

Kieran told Emory everything.

It took forty minutes. He sat on his back porch in the late afternoon sun, phone pressed to his ear, while Hank dug methodically at something near the fence and Mabel lay stretched in a patch of shade, unbothered by the heat.

Two days had passed since the fight. Two days of silence from next door. No texts. No knocks. Rory’s truck came and went at its usual times, but Kieran hadn’t seen him. Hadn’t tried to.

The San Francisco host had responded. The unit was available. First and last month’s rent, move-in as early as next week.

Kieran hadn’t replied.

When he finished talking, the line was quiet for a long moment. He could hear Emory breathing, the faint sound of traffic wherever she was.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Can I be honest with you?”

“When have you ever not been?”

“Fair.” A pause. “How long have you and Rory officially been together?”

Kieran frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean how long. A few months?”

“We’re not officially anything…but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Kieran. How well do you know this person?”

The question landed wrong. Like a glass set down too hard on a counter.

“I know him,” Kieran said.

“You didn’t know he was married.”

“That’s the whole point.”

“The point is that you’ve been together for a few weeks and you’re acting like he violated a sacred contract.” Emory’s voice wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t soft either. “Does he owe you that? This early? His worst trauma, on your timeline?”

Kieran didn’t answer right away.

“He listened to me talk about my mom,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “He didn’t rush to fill the silence, while I—I just kept talking.”

“You chose to tell him that. That was yours to give. It doesn’t mean he owes you his.”