They settled on the front stoop, and she helped herself to a chocolate-covered doughnut when he held the bag out to her. He selected a plain one. There was a cool breeze, and a little rain was still falling from the flat gray sky, but all in all he felt, suddenly, that it was a beautiful morning. Or afternoon. Whatever.

“You slept all right, then?” she said, pinching off a piece of doughnut between her fingers.

“Fine,” he said, though he filled with disgust at the thought of it. The drunken stumbling up the stairs. The whiskey-laced nightmares. The putrid taste in his furry mouth.

Her eyes widened. “What happened?”

He hadn’t meant to let on. “I said it was fine, Dolly,” he said.

She put the little piece of her doughnut in her mouth. When she had swallowed, she said, “You don’t sleep very well, do you?”

He looked at her a moment before finally shaking his head, just slightly. He felt a little better, just giving away that much. He took a bite of his doughnut, and chewed; a sweet jolt. He felt even better, then.

“Ever?”

He laughed a little. “With help, sometimes.”

“I’m worried about you, JJ. I don’t think you should be living like this. Or spending all this time alone.”

As he polished off his doughnut, his mouth full of the sweetness melting, his stomach began to ache. He looked at her sideways. Her eyes were warm and dark.

“Look, Dolly,” he said. He took his cigarettes from his T-shirt sleeve, thinking, This is where it starts. This is where it starts to end. “It’s no good for you to worry about me. Why don’t you go home to your husband? Doesn’t he wonder about you spending all this time over here?” He lit up and smoked, savoring the burning in his chest, squinting at the Bear Trap through the trees.

“I told you, he’s at work all the time,” she said.

He didn’t look at her. “You want this house, don’t you?”

“… For him. I’m sorry.”

“Do you think it would make him come home?”

He felt her flinch.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was mean. I don’t know why I said that.” Then he added, “I can’t imagine not wanting to come home to you.”

“Don’t say that,” she snapped, drawing farther away from him. Then she sighed. “Besides, he’s different from you. He doesn’t need anybody.”

“You think I do?”

“Well, don’t you?”