The apartment is already empty by the time I step out of my room, and after a quick shower, mostly to jolt myself awake, I step out to go meet my stalker. There have been nine more texts since I woke up, and they’ve devolved into a full stream of consciousness about pastries. Ming looks way too comfortable lounging on the Wyatt’s stoop in gray sweats and Tom Ford brown-leather high-tops that match his hoodie today.

“I swear, there had better be a reason, Ming.”

“‘’Cause you had a bad day,’” comes the familiar song as soon as I step out of the Wyatt.

“Are you having a stroke?”

He holds one finger up to interrupt me and raises his voice an octave as he continues to sing. Way too loudly, incidentally.

“‘You’re taking one down, You sing a sad song just to turn it around.’”

“Dude! There are people around,” I say, casting a look around the street already bustling with typical Saturday morning foot traffic. A woman giggles at Ming’s controversial singing voice, but he’s undeterred and keeps serenading with the old cheesy radio single everyone in this house has occasionally shimmied to while doing the dishes.

I can only glare with crossed arms as a smile begins to waver on his lips until he breaks down and starts laughing—cackling, really—but he straightens back up, committed to stretching the last line of his melody as long as he can.

“‘You had a bad daaaay.’”

“I’m very glad you’re amusing yourself,” I say, though I realize I’m smiling too now. It might be the first time since yesterday.

“I heard everything, and I mean, you just had such a shitty day, dude. That was one for the records. It needed a soundtrack!”

His eyes are wet with actual tears, the little maniac.

“Plus, the Halti I know doesn’t send texts like these,” he finally says, recovered from his comedy, and turns his phone my way.

Shit, shitty-ass, shit of a day.

No one can say I’m not a well-spoken Negro in texting too.

“I figured it was worth following up in person,” he says, putting his phone away.

“And which Halti do you know, exactly?”

Ming pretends to think for a moment. “Six feet tall, Haitian-American, closed-off, possibly sociopathic tendencies?”

“A lot of people might agree with you these days,” I say.

“I heard,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t have any Cronuts, but there is some Haitian orange cake in the fridge, I think. Wanna come in? My parents are out.”

Ming looks at the building and then back to me with a raised eyebrow like he’s not sure if I’m kidding or not. “Like, into your actual apartment?”

I can only muster up a listless shrug. “What else do I have to lose?”