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“You’re welcome.”

Briana slipped an arm around my waist and hugged me from the side, and I looked down at her and got lost for a moment the way I always did when I got hugs from her.

“You smell good,” she said, smiling up at me.

I wished I could lean down and kiss her. That’s what a real boyfriend would do here. Just a quick peck and a smile.

Instead I said, “You too.”

Instead. Everything I wanted to do with her, I did something else instead.

Grandpa came blazing down the hall at warp speed and snapped me out of it. He rolled so close to Briana she had to jump out of the way.

“You got my cigarettes?” He glared at her.

“No, I still do not have your cigarettes,” Briana said, crossing her arms.

“Were you supposed to bring them?” Rosa asked.

Briana shook her head. “He’s not allowed to have them, Mom.”

“The hell I’m not!” he bellowed. “This place is a prison!”

“Grandpa…” I said.

Then Mom and Dad came down the hall with Jane to save me. I introduced my parents. Benny introduced himself to my sister as Ben, for some reason. Then my parents swept Rosa and Benny off for a tour of the house with Grandpa and Jane, and Briana and I were alone for a moment.

She slumped the second they were around the corner.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I locked up Jafar, but there’s nothing I can do about Grandpa.”

She snorted.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You were late.”

“Yeah, check out what I did on the way over. I saw a dead possum, so I stopped to get it for your dad—and it wasn’t dead.”

I barked out a laugh.

“When I picked it up, it hissed at me and I fell backward. My mom thinks I’ve officially lost it. I landed in a bush and she had to pick leaves out of my hair. I bumped my elbow.” She lifted it up and frowned at it.

I grinned. “Want me to look at it?”

She rubbed it. “No, it’s fine.”

I gave her an amused look. “You don’t have to bring my dad dead things.”

“But I want to be his favorite,” she whined.

I chuckled. And then I just gazed at her. I’d missed her, even in just the hour since I’d seen her at work.

It didn’t feel normal for us to be apart now. And when we were together, I still wasn’t getting as much of her as I wanted.

I was always starved when it came to her. I lived off crumbs, never getting full. Even now, standing in this hallway in a place where we could touch, I couldn’t, because nobody was standing right here to see it. All of it, everything I got, was performative, and the deprivation was getting to me a little more every day. Even to just tell her that I loved her would be something. It seemed a waste to love her as much as I did without her ever knowing it. To be unaware that her very existence was my reason for smiling, for being happy to wake up in the morning.

Her phone chirped. She dug in her purse and looked at it. Then she turned off the sound and put it away.

“Alexis?” I asked.