“What if you lose something in there?” Cooper had complained. “How the hell do you get it out? It’s too long and narrow. Too heavy to turn upside down easily.”

Park had shaken his head, bewildered. “What the hell are you talking about? What are you losing?”

“Boogie? My sense of self? My core values?”

Eventually, Cooper had convinced Park to leave the vase behind. But the squabbling over house decor had gotten so bad that they’d established a rule that each person was allowed one non-arguable purchase every two months. To Cooper’s dismay, Park had immediately—and smugly—doubled back for the vase, which was clearly his plan all along.

“That’s cheating,” Cooper had protested.

“Or is it the brilliant stroke of strategy that wins the war,” Park had said, bowing with a flourish before running his hand suggestively up his thigh, frisky with victory. “Check and mate.”

“You’ll be checking if you still have a mate if you keep that up,” Cooper had snapped. Things had escalated pleasantly from there and, shame of shames, he had in fact agreed to the vase when he was feeling significantly more amenable for, ah, some reason or another.

The package weighed a ton and he nearly dropped it wrestling it into the foyer. And then did drop it when Boogie snuck up and tried to help.

“If it’s broken, you’re taking the blame,” Cooper said to his cat.

Boogie’s expression said fat chance, and sadly she was right.

He left the vase in the box and settled down in the living room with wine and his laptop to check some emails, Boogie prowling for a prime position on the couch with him. It was just after eight but he was exhausted and, though he’d never admit it, a tiny bit lonely, too. After the excitement of the day it felt anticlimactic and strange to come back to the house alone and sit in silence with Boogie.

An absurd and embarrassing thought. Park had only been gone for six days, and here was Cooper, as restless and horny and lamentful as a Tennessee Williams woman. Cooper enjoyed being alone. Even if Park was in the house, Cooper might choose to spend time by himself. But knowing Park was there, that Cooper could debrief the day, hear his opinions, intersect his orbit at whim, was, well, something he’d come to depend on.

What stage of love was it when another person became a habit? How quickly had the mere background hum of another person’s life become such an essential fixture of the house that its absence felt like a robbery? Like their home had been gutted and he was left drifting around the remains with the non-valuables like giant, ostentatious floor vases?