With nothing else to do, she’d explored the house—giving his bedroom a wide berth—and discovered her furniture on the third floor. She thought it was a good sign that he’d put it up there, rather than the basement like they’d talked about, and had gone to bed with her favorite vibrator, hoping to take the edge off.

By the time she’d rolled out of bed on Sunday morning, he was already gone, a note on the kitchen counter explaining that his mother had convinced him to join the family for Mass. He still expected to be home around four, and was looking forward to their talk.

With a whole day of waiting stretching in front of her, she’d taken a long bath, done all her laundry, re-read a favorite book, put together a lasagna from scratch, cleaned the kitchen, and was now looking at apartment listings on her laptop. Or trying to—she kept watching the clock.

She forced herself to refocus on the screen in front of her and scroll through the listings. She wanted to stay in the neighborhood, as it was close to work and all her friends, but what was available was either not enough space, over her budget, or of questionable quality.

She clicked on a listing for a one-bedroom with den and scrolled through the pictures. The bedroom was small but adequate, the kitchen narrow but workable. But the shower looked like someone had been using it as a growth lab for the kind of mold that devoured entire cities, and the toilet—

“Wait a minute.” She clicked through all the pictures again, looking carefully, but there was no toilet. Either they’d left it out because out it didn’t look good—a daunting prospect considering the shower had been photographed in high definition—or the apartment had no toilet.

“Next,” she muttered, and got up to get a glass of water just as the back door opened.

Cade stepped inside. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Olivia forced herself to keep going, pulling a glass from the cabinet and walking to the freezer for ice. “How was dinner at your mom’s?”

“Good.” He lifted his hand to show her the insulated bag that he carried. “I’ve got leftovers.”

“The black bean soup?” she guessed, filling her glass at the filtered spout inside the refrigerator.

“Yeah.” He set the bag on the counter, then tucked his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Smells like you’ve got something else cooking, though.”

“Lasagna.” She walked back to the counter and sat down, rubbing her damp palms on the skirt of her sundress. “I didn’t know if you had anything planned, so…”

“It smells good.” He picked up the bag and moved to the fridge, smiling at her with such easy charm she relaxed. “What’re you looking at?”.

“Apartments.” She refocused on the screen with a grimace. “This one doesn’t seem to have a toilet.”