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I stop. He’s stretched across the couch with Darcy asleep against his hip.

“You’re talking to my mother?”

He holds out the phone. “She called me because you hung up on her.”

“I did not hang up. I said goodbye, but I was on the elevator.”

Mom’s laughter comes through the speaker.

I take the phone from him. “Stop conspiring with my roommate.”

“Hayes always answers his phone.”

“Well, that’s because he’s a suck-up.”

“I’m just so glad you guys have each other in Chicago. Evergreen is too quiet now that you’re all gone.” She starts to get emotional, and my dad calls for her in the background. “Well, love you both.”

Neither of us says anything for a minute, but her little comments hang heavy in the air between us.

“Love you, Mom.” I whisper at the same time Bishop says, “Love you too, Mrs. B.”

I hang up.

Bishop looks smug. “I’m her favorite.”

I throw a couch pillow at him. Darcy startles awake. Bishop catches the pillow one-handed and immediately covers the cat with his other hand.

“Easy, Laney.”

“Oh, my God.” He did not just do what I think he did.

“What?”

“You protected him.”

“I protected myself. Have you seen his claws?”

“Sure, Ken. Keep pretending you haven’t fallen in love with my cat.”

He gives me the same long-suffering expression he always does when I use the nickname he pretends to hate.

“He’s the one crawling all over me, not the other way around, Baby Becks.”

I laugh and reach for my notebook. I feel the sudden urge to clear my head in my pink composition book and put a little distance between myself and my off-limits temporary roommate.

The Phoenixes beat Los Angeles on Sunday. I watch the highlights, but I don’t tell Bishop.

Tuesday morning, Wilder House feels different the second I step off the elevator.

Suitcases sit beside two desks. Angela is fielding calls. Liz crosses the office carrying a garment bag and three folders while Steve argues with a printer.

“What happened?”

Angela glances up. “Conference week.”

My stomach drops before I can stop it.

New York.