Absalom muted the alerts on his phone. Then he unmuted them to tell Sandra that he was going dark for a while, just in case she tried to reach him. She was never too insistent and tried to play her emotions off as “unnecessary twitches,” but she would worry if she didn’t hear from him. During those five minutes—at most—while he was looking at the screen, Becca texted him again. A string of emojis spelled out what she wanted to do. He only needed to glimpse the colours before he understood. The memory was like a bruise. His desire was transparent.
But he had to get to work. He’d already been late earlier in the week because he saw Becca just after his run. The two had met at a gas station between her place and his and broke a baby-changing station in the process. He’d barely had time to sh
