I bump into the low, plaid-upholstered couch as I enter the darkened living room, and curse at it, as though it is the idiot who just invited Condor over for a drink and not me. I’m used to tight spaces, rooms that open straight into other rooms, apartments too small to even need a hallway, but this house makes me uneasy, because it’s not my space. And the disarray of items the owner has chosen to keep around are even worse—they should add up to form a picture of the people who once lived here but there’s no story, just junk.

Quickly, I slip on a casual T-shirt, one that hangs off my shoulder a bit and shows the straps of my bra. Brush my teeth and wash my hands. Wash them again.

I head to the kitchen to dig up some glasses, but the cabinets are as disorganized as everything else. Mouse droppings along the back of one of them.

Condor knocks on my front door so lightly I almost miss it. He’s carrying a box of Chik’n Biscuit crackers and a block of cheddar.

“Hannah’s favorite,” he says, gesturing to the box of crackers. “Don’t tell her.”

“Jars okay? Couldn’t find actual wineglasses.”

—

In the living room, Condor takes the sofa. I grab a rickety chair and set it across from him. He pours us each some wine and tells me there’s a way to open a bottle by using a shoe. He tells me about the store, about his favorite wines, about the garbage Hannah watches on TV, about how he likes to hunt on the weekends. Most of it is not very surprising. He brags about his great aim, then laughs.

The first glass makes me warm and the second glass makes me feel loose and the third, when we’re nearly at the end of the bottle, brings him more strongly into focus: his jaw, the way his eyes crease when he smiles, the way he uses his hands. His lower lip, perfect for biting.

“What is it?” he says, and I realize I’ve been staring. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not.” I stand up quickly, so he won’t see me blush, and pass into the kitchen. Of all the things the landlord left, one of them is a bottle of Johnnie Walker stashed beneath the sink. “I mean, I was just wondering what it’s like to live here. That’s all.”

“Didn’t you used to live here?” Condor asks. He doesn’t blink when I set down the whiskey.

“I meant now,” I say. I’m half-drunk and work will be a bitch tomorrow. But it’s too late anyway. It was too late when he called out to me across the yard. “What’s it like, living here now?”

Condor leans forward and tips the last drops of wine into my glass. He spins the empty bottle between his palms. “I haven’t only lived here,” he says, in a different tone. “I took Hannah and moved to the coast of Florida when her mom and I—” He breaks off suddenly, and a shadow moves across his face and takes the rest of his smile with it.