Mila grabs the coffees and opens the front door, and Melly keeps walking.
“Melly?”
She stops briefly. Her hand goes to the door frame. Her knuckles go white. She doesn’t turn around. Mila says something to her, and she keeps walking.
Mila looks at me. Just once. The look isn’t angry. It’s the worst possible thing the look could be, which is please don’t. She’s asking me, with her eyes, not to make this harder than it already is.
I look at Melly’s back as she walks away.
My heart is in my throat.
The front door closes.
I hear a vehicle pull away from the curb, and I’m still staring at the front door.
Percy doesn’t say anything when I turn around and reach for my coffee. I chug it and place it in the sink.
I walk into the living room.
Stanley is still face down on the couch with a blanket pulled halfway over his head. He hasn’t moved since I came downstairs. His snoring is light and steady.
I stand over him and push him. He doesn’t move. Then I smack him hard on the chest.
“Fuck.” His whole body jolts. The blanket falls off his head. He sits halfway up with one eye open, and the other glued shut, and his hair pushed up on one side. “— what — what — Blue — what the fuck?”
“Key.”
“What?”
“The rink. Back door. Give me the key.”
He squints at me. He sits up the rest of the way. “Bro. What time is it?”
I’m losing all patience. When he looks at me through one eye, he reads my face the way Percy did. His eyes go from my eyes to my collarbone and back to my eyes. His face changes, the hungover-Stanley face going off and the other-Stanley face coming on, the sharp one.
“Yeah. Yeah. Hang on.”
He fumbles for his pants on the floor and pulls a keyring out of the pocket. He works one key off the ring and holds it up.
“Back door. Maintenance entrance. Code’s still 0408. Don’t get caught.”
I take the key. “Thanks.”
“Golding.”
I stop.
“You good?”
“No.”
He doesn’t push. He lies back down on the couch and pulls the blanket over his head.
He says, into the cushion, “Take some water with you.”
When I reach upstairs, my bedroom door is hanging open. I walk in and notice that the bed is unmade. The blanket is shoved back and matches where we both slept. The pillow on her side has a dent in it. My hat is on the nightstand next to the half-full water cup. The trash can is still beside the bed.
I move fast. Closet. Gear bag. Clean t-shirt, gym shorts, socks. I pull jeans on over the shorts I’m already wearing. I don’t have a hoodie, and that’s a problem.
