Rash, reckless, selfish, he thought, with renewed conviction. Enough of counting days, of staring blankly at scribbled notes and computer screens, enough of thinking about Nora’s skin and her smell. He didn’t want mess like this; he never had. Up ahead, the exit doors promised a colorful sunset, and that was a time of day he ought to celebrate, because it didn’t make him think of Nora at all.

“Would it be odd, do you think,” Abraham said, which is right about when Will realized he hadn’t ever responded. “If I also gave her one?”

Will stopped in front of the exit doors, turned and blinked down at Abraham, breaking the long-unspoken eye contact rules. “If you . . . gave her a kitten?”

Abraham smoothed his lapel. “Yes. As a gesture.”

A gesture of what, Abraham didn’t say, but despite the sock history /hamster??? brain sluggishness, Will had enough of his wits about this to see it for what it was. Gerald Abraham was trying to reconcile with his ex-wife, and wanted Will’s advice. Truly a reckless move. What did Will know about reconciliation? He’d never tried such a thing in his life, because it’d never been necessary. You never needed to have a breakup if you never let things go beyond a night or two, if you only shared those nights with people who also weren’t looking for anything more.

Still, that lapel-smoothing. It got right in there, up against that cracked glass in Will’s chest. He took a breath and thought about Quincy and Francis, who were in fact enjoyable to look at on a phone screen but a lot of work outside of that.

“Two is enough,” he said, and Abraham nodded gravely, looking toward the doors Will was about to go out.

“You could maybe get her something from a pet store,” he added. “Supplies. A gift card.”

“I often bought her gift cards. During our marriage.”

Will winced. “Don’t do that, then.”

A memory of two weeks, two days ago came back to him, something he’d said to Nora in the dark, confessional solace of her bedroom: I’m not even sure I ever learned how to be a good friend. Definitely he and Gerald Abraham weren’t friends, and definitely Will would never be finding himself in this particular situation—broken up, lonely enough to be coming up with cat-purchasing schemes, looking for advice from the nearest person you knew the name of.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t offer something.

“You ought to go see her,” he said, putting his hand on the door handle. He’d help, but then he had to get the hell out of here. This was uncomfortable enough that he thought he might be blushing. “If you—if pets weren’t your thing, I mean. Going to see hers, that would be a nice gesture.”