Page 218 of Bend

That I can see myself here.

My tools in the shed. My guitar near the couch. My clothes upstairs instead of shoved into motel drawers.

Coffee in the kitchen that I actually chose myself.

I can see a life here.

I just wish Wolfe was still part of it.

A knock comes at the door twenty minutes later.

I know who it is before I stand.

Thorne is on the porch with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, hair messy from dragging his fingers through it and the exhaustion of the day written across his face.

I open the door wider.

“You stalking me?”

“Did a shit job of it if I knocked.”

His voice is quiet.

There’s no real joke behind the words.

I step aside.

He comes in slowly, and the second the door closes behind him, his eyes start moving around the room.

He looks toward a mug on the counter, then the jacket by the kitchen, then the couch.

His expression changes with each thing.

“It’s weird,” I say.

Thorne lets out a slow breath. “Yeah.”

“I keep expecting him to come through that door and ask why I’m touching his shit.”

“He’d definitely complain about the plant.”

I look toward the window.

“It’s barely alive.”

“Yeah, well it was barely alive when I got here, I had no part in that.”

That almost gets a smile out of me.

Almost.

Thorne walks farther into the room and runs his fingers over the back of the couch.

“His mum told me they gave it to you.”

“I tried saying no.”

“Course you did.”