Adrian put his phone face down on the desk and we sat with Charles’s message between us
like a lit fuse neither of us was ready to touch yet.
“Not tonight,” Adrian said.
“Not tonight,” I agreed.
We were both quiet for a moment, the city doing its indifferent thing outside the window,
and then I picked up my bag and left him there with the weight of it. Some things needed to
be sat with alone first. I had learned that about Adrian. He processed inward before he could
process outward, and pushing before he was ready produced nothing useful for either of us.
I found out about Richard the next morning.
Daniel called at seven forty-two, before my coffee had finished brewing, before Ethan had
fully dragged himself out of bed and started interrogating me about suspension bridge cable
t
