After a particularly graceless scramble, I get to the last hold and call to Jane again. “Take!”

“I’ve got you!” He tightens the rope. “You ready to come down?”

“Bring me home, baby.”

“Go ahead.”

I let go of the wall and descend, Jane smoothly feeding the line through his brake. When I reach the floor, I squat down for more slack, then straighten. “Off belay.”

“You’re off,” he replies, and we release from the rope. “Sorry about earlier. That’s such a no-no.” He sighs. “I don’t know why I’m letting this get to me. He’s busy.”

I nod, holding back what I know he’s thinking: no one is too busy to send a text.

Saturday afternoon’s call included a warning that Charles was going to be swamped for the coming days. Texts tapered off to nothing, with only a short check-in call on Sunday. Jane, being Jane, has taken it in stride, but after two days of silence I know it’s weighing on him.

I try not to hold Charles’s delinquency against him, but the man’s inattention has derailed what started as a perfectly lovely week for Jane and me. After almost a month like two ships passing, we’ve finally had time to hang out together. Saturday’s show was a blast, and I tagged along for Jane’s after-hours performance with the band. We had brunch with Ming the next afternoon, where she theorized on the many ways that she suspected the Twins and Wickham enjoyed one of the bathrooms during Saturday’s set break. Technically, it was only one theory with several interpretations on positioning, but she was thorough. And foul. Jane and I bought mimosas for the tables within earshot. At $3 a pop, we figured it was the least we could do for folks unprepared to wrap their weekend with the phrase “nightmarishly elastic” attributed to a human’s pelvic region.

Evenings, I spent any free time working on my designs, with Jane giving input over episodes of Drag Race. But last night, when Charles missed their tentative phone date, Jane switched from Mama Ru to documentaries, getting in two episodes of Blue Planet before turning in. I’m trying not to read into it, but the slip into informational viewing sets off warning bells. Jane was deep-diving nature programming when I moved in. He was at the River Monsters stage of depression when I tasked him with showing me around Manhattan. I proposed climbing tonight to take his mind off things, but after his belay fail, I’m wishing I’d come up with a lower-risk activity.

Jane flexes his chalk-dusty fingers. The joints crackle and snap. “I think I’m done climbing. I’ll still belay if you’d like.”