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Zane’s good for a beer, spotting, and bad advice. He’s competent with skin-level emotional support.

The apartment is too quiet.

I should shower. I should eat.

I should call Becca’s cousin to see what stupid lawyering has gone down since the last call.

I take out my phone.

Three missed notifications from the cam platform. One payout update. Two messages.

My stomach does the now-familiar thing: not excitement, not dread, some dumb chemical blend of both.

I open the app.

BigDog469 sent a message at 1:13 a.m.

you going live tonight? wanna see you use the plug again

I close that one.

The second message is from Bentley84.

Good luck at the park today. Hope Zane behaves himself.

I stare at it longer than I should.

Bentley84 has been around for a few weeks now. Not every night, but often enough that I notice when he doesn’t show. He doesn’t flood the chat or open with show hole or spread or turn around. He asks weird, normal things.

Dinner good?

Do you always cook pizza, or do they let you do other things?

Is Zane the friend with the terrible advice?

I shouldn’t have told him about Zane.

I shouldn’t have told him anything.

That’s the thing about private messages. They start as money. Then one night you answer a question because the public room is being annoying, and suddenly some guy with a luxury car username remembers you play disc golf on Thursdays when the weather holds.

I type back:

Zane never behaves.

Then I delete it.

The shower helps for about three minutes. Sweat and park dirt down the drain. My shoulders loosen under the hot water. My hands stop feeling like they’re still gripping a disc.

Then I close my eyes, and the basketball court comes back. A hand shoving my chest. Concrete burning my elbow.

I turn the water colder.

After the shower, I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself until it becomes a bad idea. I rub the towel over my head.

“Work,” I say.

The word steadies me.