“Yes, Falyn. What insult would you like to issue for that?”

“None. It’s cute. I imagine that it’s a little like high school but with less rules.”

“Isn’t that what college is anyway?”

“Not really. But I went to Dartmouth.”

“Shut up.”

I nuzzled my cheek against the arm of the chair, utterly content with how mean we were being to each other. Taylor began tapping at his cell phone, and I relaxed, feeling like an invisible one-hundred-pound blanket was draped over me.

I woke up to the morning sun pouring through my windows. My mouth tasted like a cat had pissed in it while I slept.

“Hey,” Taylor said, sitting in the center of the sofa, surrounded by piles of folded clothes. “Do you have to work today?”

“Huh?” I said, sitting up.

“Do you work on Sundays?”

“Not this week. It’s my day off,” I said, groggy. When my brain began to work again, I blinked and then glared at the man folding my unmentionables. “Why are you still here?”

“I did the rest of our laundry, and then I fell asleep. You woke me up a couple of times though. Do you have bad dreams like that a lot?”

“Huh?”

Taylor hesitated. “You had some pretty gnarly dreams. You were crying in your sleep.”

I hadn’t had a nightmare in years, not like I had while I was at Dartmouth. My former roommate, Rochelle, would still talk about how I’d terrified her in the middle of the night.

I looked at the delicate cotton in his hands. “Put down my panties. Right now.”

Taylor tossed them into the basket with the rest of my panties. Most of them were the discount-store printed variety. On certain pairs, the elastic hung loose in fuzzy strings from the waistline or leg holes.

“This is the last load,” he said, gesturing to the basket between his ankles. “Socks and panties.”

“Oh my God,” I said, rubbing my face. “You’re going to make me do the walk of shame in front of all my coworkers and customers.”

Taylor stood up. “Isn’t there a back door?”

“Chuck and the boys will still see you.”

“What time do they open on Sundays?”

“Chuck and Phaedra are pretty much always at the café—from sunrise to sunset.”

“How do you have any privacy?”

I blew my bangs from my face. “I didn’t need any until now.”

“I’ll fix it. I know what to do.”

Taylor gathered his laundry, fitting it all perfectly inside of the lone basket he’d brought, and waved at me to follow him downstairs. We stood at the bottom in full view of the retirees who always stopped at the Bucksaw on Sundays for coffee, all my coworkers, a few local families, and a table full of tourists.