"Mhm."
He went back to the flipper. Not for long. A minute, maybe less. Then the wrench stopped moving, and I felt him watching me from the floor before I heard him speak.
"Are you dating somebody?"
"No."
"Brother." He sat back on his heels and looked at me, patiently, head tilted, waiting for the truth and not minding the concrete floor while he waited. "I know what 'no' sounds like when 'no' means 'I'm not telling you yet.' That was 'no' the second way."
I didn't answer right away.
"Alright. I'm not gonna make you. But you don't tell me about her, that means it's serious."
I looked at the ceiling tile for a beat and felt the answer come up before I'd decided to give it.
"Maybe."
His head came up.
He didn't make a thing of it. He nodded once, slowly, and went back to the flipper.
"Alright, brother. I'll wait."
He didn't ask again.
I left his place at seven with sawdust in my hair and grease on the side of my neck, and drove home with the windows down, the radio low, one hand on the wheel.
When I rolled past Maple at the end of the run, I clocked her kitchen light on. The window was warm and yellow against the dark siding, and I caught myself slowing the truck before I'd registered I was doing it. I turned around at the next block, doubling back to the diner on Main. By the time I thanked Doris and got back in the truck with the bag warm on the passenger seat, I'd already decided.
I drove home, parked in my own driveway, let Pen out, clipped her to the leash, and walked her across the street with the bag in my free hand and the Hartsdale Fire shirt still on my back.
Should've showered first.
Didn't.
She opened the door with the smile of a woman who'd been bracing for someone else and had to shift fast when she saw it was me. The shift was tight. The smile didn't sit right at the corners.
I knew the smile. I'd seen it enough on my mother growing up to know what it was for.
I lifted the bag.
"Got takeout for both of us."
She let me in.
Penny went straight through the kitchen to the rug by the back door like she lived there. Moose came off the rug to meet her at the threshold, and they did the morning sniff at the side of the face like it was eight a.m. and not eight p.m. Astrid watched them. She watched them a beat too long—long enough that I knew she was using the dogs to put off having to look at me.
"Is something wrong?" I said.
She shook her head. "Nothing."
I set the bag on the counter and let the question lie. I wasn't gonna chase it across the floor.
She'd cleared her permits off the kitchen table while I was on the porch. Stack pushed to the corner, pen on top, cold tea beside it.
I let it go.
I opened the bag. Two diner specials, the meatloaf for me and the chicken pot pie for her, because I'd watched her order it at the diner the Sunday before. Two pieces of pie wrapped in foil—cherry for her, peach for me. I'd been paying attention.
