It was strange; she never invited him to do any of the activities with Nina and Polly, and he never again invited her to come gardening, or go to Denny’s. But they shared their lives with each other. He’d offered to drive her to school every day, back when the fall semester had started. Laura was making a lot of progress in therapy, but still wasn’t quite ready to face Los Angeles traffic. They’d discuss the previous night’s game on the commute each morning, and Laura would catch the bus home. Her workload was pretty heavy and she’d gotten a teaching assistant job in the biology faculty, so she didn’t have much free time. But what free time she had she spent with him, or with Nina and Polly.

She’d never known anyone like him, someone so accepting and calm. He didn’t demand much of her; she didn’t ask much of him. They . . . hung out. They watched the game, whatever game was on, they shot the breeze about this and that, and they slowly discovered they viewed the world in much the same way. Now, as she contemplated his leaving, she realized she looked forward to spending time with him more than any other aspect of her life and was going to be brokenhearted to lose it.

As they settled down on his sofa and popped a couple of beers, Bob looked over at Laura and said, “Did you bring . . . ?”

She nodded, reaching into her hoodie pocket and pulling out a bag of peanut M&M’s. She tore it open and tipped some into her hand. Bob leaned over and picked out a green and ate it, then handed her a few browns.

“How was today?”

Laura rolled her eyes. “I spoke to my mother, or at least I think it was my mother, it might have been an alien pod person.” She smiled and reached for the blanket she often snuggled under while they watched. She threw a fold of it over his legs, too, and wished she was brave enough to snuggle closer. “She was remarkably pleasant and didn’t criticize any of my choices.”

“That is confusing,” he said, reaching for more M&M’s. “Did you eat all the greens?”

“No,” she said, tipping out the bag onto his wide palm. She loved his hands, they were strong and practical, and she watched happily as he moved the candies with his finger, sorting and dividing and sharing. He pushed the remaining browns toward her, and she took them.

“Laura,” said Bob, settling back and throwing M&M’s into his mouth more or less accurately. “Do you think there are fewer greens than there used to be?” He twitched the blanket to a better position, wishing he was brave enough to snuggle closer.