The second time I walked to Damian’s door the snow had turned to a wet, miserable sleet that soaked through the cuffs of my jeans and made every step sound like I was stepping on broken glass. I stood on the porch for three full seconds longer than necessary, staring at the peeling paint on the frame, before I knocked.
He opened it like he had been waiting with his hand already on the knob.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I’m three minutes early.”
“You’re late for the version of you that said she’d come. I calculated for second thoughts.”
I stepped inside and toed off my wet boots. The apartment smelled the same as before—coffee, clean laundry, the faint cold that clung to his coat. Tonight there was also the low sound of a hockey broadcast muted on the television in the corner, the kind of
