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Brad stopped rocking and narrowed his eyes at me. “Take that back.”

“I absolutely will not.”

He leaned forward. “With as much disrespect as I can manage, Justin, fuck you.”

I laughed.

Brad sat back into his chair. “So how’s it going with the girl?” he asked.

“It’s going,” I said. “I like her. A lot.”

“How much longer is she here?” Benny asked, taking the seat next to Brad.

I sat with my elbows on my knees. “Four and a half more weeks.”

“Can she sign another contract? Stay longer?” Benny asked.

“I mean I guess in theory she could. Though I don’t know if she will.”

“Have you hooked up with her yet?” Brad asked.

“I haven’t even kissed her yet.”

“Oh, well there you go,” Brad said. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing if she leaves. You gotta give her the magic peen.”

“Ha. I will take that under advisement.”

I stared absently at the bag of chocolates in my hand. Brad was studying me. I could feel it. I looked up. “What?”

“Dude. You’re fucking sprung.”

“I said I like her.”

He shook his head. “Naw. You’re whipped. It’s all over your face. Tell him, Benny, he looks whipped.”

Benny nodded sagely.

“This is how it starts,” Brad said. “They get you by the balls. Next thing you know you’re going to musicals.”

“Uh, I like musicals.”

“You would.”

I scoffed.

“How you doing with the moving-back-in thing?” Benny asked.

I puffed out my cheeks. “Talked with Mom about how we should do it. We’re going to pack up her room and put everything in storage after she leaves, move me into the primary bedroom.”

“Yeah, we wanted to talk to you about that,” Brad said.

“About what?” I asked.

“We want to fix it up for you,” Benny said. “When I got sick and I had to move back into my mom’s place, the worst part was how old everything was. We want to replace the blinds, paint.”

“We could pull up that old carpet too. Retile the bathroom,” Brad said. “Really do it up nice.”

I felt my face soften. They got this. They understood what this was like for me.