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“How long have you been single? I mean, I assume you’re single?”

“Deeply,” I said. “It’s been a long time.”

He looked at me again, this time like he was confused. I took that as a compliment.

The truth was it had been thirteen months. Thirteen months since I’d found my ex in bed with a Tinder date, and I’d thrown everything he’d cluttered my apartment with into trash bags and sent him out the door with his Xbox under his arm. Since then it had been a few disastrous dates, a lot of quality time with a vibrator, and an algorithm that alternated between thirst traps and rants about men, terrifyingly aligned to my menstrual cycle.

Eureka appeared, little by little. The first house. The first gas station. A man at a pump in a Carhartt jacket.

Callie woke when we hit the second light. She sat up, disoriented, and looked around, taking in the storefronts and the power lines, and said, “Oh. We’re back.”

“We’re back,” Damian said.

“That was…awful.”

“I know,” he said, and left it at that.

Damian took the turn onto her street with easy familiarity. He knew exactly where we lived.

He pulled up in front of a small blue apartment building with hanging baskets on the balconies. It was very Callie. It was so Callie I almost laughed.

“This is me,” Callie said.

She didn’t move at first. She sat in the backseat with her hands in her lap and looked at the blue building as if she’d never seen it before.

“Callie,” I said, gently.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just…give me one second.”

Damian put the jeep in park and turned the engine off, giving her the moment she needed.

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Okay. Okay. I’m being insane. I’ll text you, Marlowe, I’ll text you when I’m inside.”

“It’s okay, Callie,” I said. “You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Go inside. Drink some water. Text us in an hour.”

“An hour.”

“An hour.”

She nodded, climbed out, got her bag out of the trunk before Damian could get to it, then walked up the path to her apartment building with steps so careful, I knew she’d fall apart when she was inside the front door.

I watched her get inside. Her porch light was on, even though it was morning. Someone had left it on for her. A roommate, I guessed. And when I was looking at the porch light, my eyes drifted to the window next to it, where a large framed painting hung on the wall. A painting of a gerbera daisy.

I would only think about that days later, when it already felt too late.

Damian started the jeep again and pulled away from the curb. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up outside my apartment. No porch light. Not even a hanging basket. The whole building was dark. He cut the engine and stared at the wheel for a moment, as if his mind was at odds with another decision, then got out and opened the passenger door for me. I stepped out and threw my backpack over my shoulder. He grabbed my luggage from the trunk.

“Take my number,” he said, quietly.

I looked at him, and he looked at me, properly, for the first time since the gate. My heart did a pirouette then floated behind my ribs. But it was an odd way to say it. Take my number. Like I might need it for something serious. For something that had nothing to do with the things I’d thought about doing to his naked body.

He pulled a card out of his back pocket and handed it to me.

“Damian Halcyon,” I read aloud.