Chapter 20
Maya
Genny brings wine. Clara brings bourbon. Zoë brings a cheese board assembled with the same precision she applies to everything, strategic and aesthetically lethal. Talia brings herself, which has always been enough.
I came back to my apartment Wednesday to check the locks and air the place out. Standing in my own kitchen for the first time in weeks made me text the group: girls' night, Thursday, my place.
The first one since the envelope appeared on my doorstep.
I spend two hours before they arrive re-mapping the space. I clean the bathroom, hide the duffel I haven't unpacked because I haven't decided whether this apartment is still mine or just the place I store my winter coats, and arrange the living room so fivewomen can sit without anyone having to take the chair with the sightline blocked by the bookshelf.
The chair with the bad sightline stays empty. Nobody asks why.
"You've been a ghost," Genny says. She's on the floor. Genny always takes the floor, despite having grown up in a house with more rooms than people and furniture that costs more than my annual scholarship. The floor is Genny's rebellion. "Three weeks. No girls' night. No Chronicle happy hour. Zoë said you missed the women's hockey feature deadline."
"I renegotiated the timeline."
"She missed it," Zoë confirms from the armchair. "Two days late. First time in four years."
"Two days from Maya Maddox is a five-alarm fire," Clara says. She's on the couch beside me, boots on the coffee table, the bourbon already poured into a mug because I don't own enough proper glasses for five people and Clara doesn't care about vessels. "What's going on?"
Genny is on the floor. Clara sits beside me. Zoë has claimed the armchair. Talia is in the corner of the couch, quiet, legs curled under her, mug held in both hands.
She lets the conversation move around her until she is ready to step into it.
"I've been staying at Elm House," I say. "Cole and Dante's place."
Four pairs of eyes. Four different reactions.
Genny's eyebrows rise. "Since when?"
"Since my heat broke."
The lie comes out automatically, the edges worn down by three weeks of use. Even as I say it, the words I threw at Dante on Monday night slide through my head.
You're issuing a command with a softer verb.
My fingers tighten around my mug. A practical reason. A smoother lie. I accused Dante of using information as control, and here I am, in my own living room, keeping the worst of it zipped inside my bag. The bourbon has not made me honest enough to stop.
"Your heat broke three weeks ago and you're still there?" Zoë catches inconsistencies the way she catches uneven hems. Automatically. "Landlords fix heat, Maya. That's literally their legal obligation."
"The heat is fixed," I say. "It's been fixed for two weeks. I stayed because it's easier for the Chronicle coverage and the house has better workspace."
Nobody believes me. Genny's mouth flattens. Clara looks at the mug in my hand instead of my face. Zoë's eyes sharpen in the way they do when fabric pulls wrong across a seam. Talia stays still.
Nobody pushes.
Genny reaches for the wine. Clara takes another sip from her bourbon mug. Zoë adjusts the edge of the cheese board by half an inch. Talia keeps both hands around her mug.
"How's living with the hockey boys?" Genny asks, pivoting gracefully from the lie to adjacent truth.
"Dante makes my tea every morning without being asked. Cole leaves his socks everywhere. They argue about counter space like an old married couple."
"They argue about counter space because they've been sharing a kitchen for four years and neither of them will give up the left burner," Clara says. "That tracks."
"They're close," I say, and keep my voice neutral. Measured.
"You've been living in that house for three weeks," Genny says. "Three weeks of the two of them and you, and the most you're giving us is counter space and tea? Maya Maddox misseda deadline for the first time in four years and she wants to talk about the kettle."
