He couldn’t hold it any longer. He told her he had to go to the john, and supposed that would be the end of the night. But instead, she sat up and asked if he wanted another one.

“Sure,” he said. “If you’re having one.”

She lit a candle and took up their glasses, and he got up from the sofa, feeling naked without the afghan. He made his way quickly down the hallway, eager to get back to the den. In the bathroom there was the faintest edge of light from the window, and he could just see his dark form in the mirror over the toilet, and what appeared to be presences behind him. He’d always been afraid of mirrors in the dark, but he could never help peeking.

Why did he feel so thrilled? What did he think was going to happen? Nothing was going to happen.

Back in the den Alma had put another log on the fire and it was burning bright, and she was lying sideways in the armchair again, facing it, bobbing her feet. She asked if everything had come out all right, and he said he might have peed into the tub, he wasn’t sure. She laughed. He sat back in his place with his drink and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

“It’s nice to have another night owl to sit up with,” she said.

“You can always count on me,” he said. “I’m like a kid. I don’t ever want to go to bed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

He told her how glad he was that he and Effie had met them, how much fun they’d had these past few days. “Honestly, we were starting to feel kind of lonely before you all came along. We were going to cut the trip short, in fact.”

“Really,” she said.

“We just needed to get used to each other, I think. We’d never spent so much time together all at once. Before this it was just dates, and be back by ten. And suddenly we’re sharing a bed, and…”

She turned in the chair and placed her feet up on the table too, a couple of inches away from his. “It must be awkward.”

“It was, at first, but—you know.” He’d wandered into uncomfortable territory. She seemed to understand, and smiled at him, and looked back to the fire.

“I feel like a third wheel,” she said after a moment. “A fifth wheel, I guess.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, though he felt he understood her exactly. He felt, though he couldn’t have said how or why, that he was in the same position.

“If Clara could will me not to exist anymore, she would,” she said.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”