“If you want me out of here so fucking badly, maybe you shouldn’t also gorge yourself on my food,” I add.

He looks down at the food and then up at me. “You’ve got to be kidding . . .”

I slam the notice down on the counter. “I get it. I may not have a law degree, but I’m not an idiot. You want me out of here. I’m working on it.”

“Are you? It sure doesn’t seem like it.” Charles’s face has started to get blotchy and red.

“How would you know?” I bite back. “I’m never here.”

“You’re here enough,” he roars. “Enough to ruin everything.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Because I deigned to put a bead of sweat on your goddamn Ikea rug?”

“No,” he says, and now he’s actually shaking. A couple of pieces of rice escape the carton in his hand and end up on his precious floor. “Because I bought a goddamn ring for Dylan the day before you moved in here and now I’ve had no chance to fix up the apartment like I wanted to, or to ask him anything because you will never. Fucking. Leave.”

I stare at him, stunned. “You . . . you’re going to ask Dylan to marry you?”

“You bet your ass I am,” he roars. “Whether you think I’m good enough for him or not.”

I have no response to that. And the next words that come are actually from neither one of us.

“Oh . . . oh, Charles.”

We both whip our heads to see Dylan standing in the hallway, his hands on his mouth, and the mail he had carried up all over the floor. Apparently, neither one of us even heard him come in.

“Is it true? Are you going to propose?”

Charles’s entire face is a frown. “I . . . yes. I was going to. But not like this.” He gestures to the half-open cartons on the counter, and the food on the floor and, of course, me standing in the middle of it all. But he doesn’t look at me. His eyes are fixed on a point on the ground.

Oh, God. Now I feel like such a shithead.

“Do it,” Dylan says, as he rushes over to Charles and takes his hands. “Ask me.”

Charles looks up at him. “Really? But I was going to get food from Chez Nous. And there were going to be candles. And that Nick Drake song playing on the stereo.”

“I have a good imagination. I can pretend all of that is happening,” Dylan responds. “Just ask me.”

Charles takes one brief glance my way, but then his eyes slide past me to a side table in their living room. He walks over to it and opens up a small drawer in the back that I’ve never noticed before. He takes out a ring box.