When Harry awoke the morning after his make-out session with Esther on the couch, for a moment he was surprised to find himself alone. It had been years since he’d kept to one side of a double bed, but here he was hunched over a stack of pillows on the far edge as if he’d expected Esther would be beside him. But he was sure he hadn’t been so drunk as to entirely forget a liaison, and her side of the bed wasn’t mussed. The room did smell faintly of her patchouli perfume. He remembered she’d gone home. Now that he was sober, he recalled fragments of their conversation. But he still wasn’t sure whether she had a boyfriend.
Harry didn’t know who Skebelsky was, he had never even heard the name. Last night at dinner, when he’d asked Esther for an explanation, all she would say was “This man can
