I linger in the hallway, feeling the wave of night air Oliver brought in with him. Beside me on the console table, his phone is still glowing. When I glance down I see the Recent Calls list—two missed calls from Jeff, followed by one that Oliver evidently managed to answer.

“Everything okay with Jeff?” I say when Oliver comes back, a glass in each hand.

He just stares at me.

I point towards his phone, the screen now dimming again beside me.

“There were a bunch of missed calls?” I say.

“You were going through my phone?” Oliver’s voice is sharp, and confusion mixes with defensiveness in my tired, late-night brain.

“Of course not,” I say. “It was on; I glanced down.”

He looks at me, not exactly with disbelief, but somehow angry all the same. But beneath it I glimpse that exhaustion again, and something else—fear?

“It was nothing,” he says finally. “He was just calling for a chat. Wanted to know how the new IPA launch was coming along.”

He dredges up a smile, and because I can see it was an effort for him, I manage to smile back. But something feels off—it’s not like him to be this way, accusatory, questioning my motives. If this is what the brewery and being a small business owner is doing to him, I’m worried. All this time away from home already hasn’t been great for us. This was supposed to be an exciting new adventure for him, not something that would run him—or us—into the ground.

Upstairs we get into bed, burrowing under the covers quickly in the cold night. I hesitate, then shift closer to him under the sheets, and slide my arm over and down his chest. He takes my hand and pats it, places his own hand firmly over it.

“I’m too tired, Gillian,” he says. “Not tonight.”

*

It’s 3 AM when I wake up—my phone on the nightstand informs me of the late hour—and I look over at Oliver’s sleeping face. The tension from earlier is gone now, and only the tiniest frown between his eyes remains, so small I could smooth it with my pinkie. How does he look this peaceful? It’s as though in sleep he’s passed his burdens onto me.

A little before 4 AM I give in and go down to the kitchen to root around for the cookies I know are there: the unopened packet bought especially for insomni-mergencies. My collection of overpriced vitamins winks back at me from the counter, white plastic bottles glowing in the filtered streetlight from outside. I shake cookies onto a plate and pour a glass of milk from the fridge, hoping for a post-snack stupor to send me back to sleep.