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He looks out over the lights. “Makes you think all your problems should be smaller too.”

That line feels practiced. I don’t answer.

He sits on the rock a few feet away. Close enough that I notice his thigh. The hair on it. The way his shorts ride up when he settles. Far enough that I could still call it nothing if I wanted to.

My shoulders tighten.

“You from around here?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

I look at him. He smiles a little.

“Me too.”

I look back at the city.

His water bottle cracks when he squeezes it.

“Hot night for a run,” I say, because silence has started feeling like an answer to a question no one asked.

He laughs softly. “I wasn’t running much.”

Something in my stomach drops and lifts at the same time.

I can feel him looking at me now.

I know how men look when they want. The quick scan, the pretending not to scan, the pause at the mouth, the chest, the crotch. I know how long a man looks before he decides.

“You come up here a lot?” he asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Alone?”

I stand.

His face changes slightly. He looks up at me.

“You looking?”

The question lands in the exact center of me.

I think of Becca on the couch, face lit by television. Of Bentley’s empty place in the room.

I meet his eyes. For one second, I almost say I don’t know.

“No.”

He nods. “All right.”

No push.

I step back from the rock. “Have a good night.”

“You too.”

I walk toward the path. My skin feels too tight. My pulse is hammering hard in my neck. I expect him to say something else, maybe to even follow.