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CRUZ

My phone buzzes at 10:47 PM on a Thursday night while I’m halfway through a documentary about grizzly bears I stopped paying attention to twenty minutes ago.

Dakota: You up? Can I come over? Just me.

Not the group chat. Just her, just me. I’m typing before I finish reading.

Door’s open, sweetheart. You know where I live.

Dakota: Bringing food. Don’t argue.

Twenty minutes later she’s standing in my doorway with two takeout bags and a smile that stops somewhere south of her eyes. Her hair’s down, still damp from a shower, and she’s wearing sweats and one of Dante’s hoodies, the gray one he’s been looking for all week.

“Dante know you have that?” I ask.

“Dante knows nothing.” She pushes past me into the apartment.

She sets the bags on my kitchen counter and looks around, taking in the place. It hits me that she’s never been here alone. We’ve all crashed here in a pile once or twice, but that’s different from standing in a man’s apartment at eleven at night with the lights low alone.

“I’m always surprised it’s so clean,” she says.

“That an insult?” I ask.

“It’s an observation. You seem like a guy who’d have empty protein tubs stacked in a corner and a couch that smells like Axe body spray.”

“Had both. Circa 2019.” I pull plates from the cabinet because my mama raised me better than eating pad thai out of the carton in front of a lady. “Victor made me deep-clean the gym showers for a month after I left my gear bag open in the locker room. Taught me the value of not living like an animal.”

She laughs, and it’s real, but there’s a hitch underneath it. Something’s riding her tonight. I can see it in her shoulders, in how she picked my apartment instead of her own bed, instead of Dante’s or Eli’s.

We eat at my little kitchen table, the one I bought secondhand and refinished myself because sanding wood turns out to be good for a temper. She asks about Brady’s next fight, whether Victor’s going to push for the regional card in the spring. I tell her about Dante making us all sit through a movie last weekend where a man punched a helicopter.

“He cried at the end,” I say. “Actual tears. Over the helicopter movie.”

Dakota smiles. “He cries at commercials. He cried at that insurance ad with the dog.”

“That dog was going through it, to be fair.”

She smiles and pushes a piece of chicken around her plate. Third lap around the rice without a bite. I put my fork down.

“All right. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m tired.”

“Sweetheart.”

“I am tired.”

“You’re tired every day. We all are. Tired doesn’t make you drive across town at eleven at night to watch me eat noodles.” I keep my voice easy. “You don’t have to tell me. But don’t feed me the tired line.”

She sets her fork down. Wraps both hands around her water glass like she needs the anchor. The kitchen hums quiet around us, just the refrigerator and the traffic three floors down.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” she says. “About Gerald.”

Everything in my chest goes still and icy at that name.

“Started a couple weeks ago. I wake up and I’m sure he’s in the room. Like, certain. I can feel his hand on my wrist.” She rubs her thumb over the inside of her left wrist where the bruises faded months ago. “Takes me a full minute to remember where I am. Sometimes longer.”