When she’d come home that night, she’d cried and cried, choking on the words he’d said to her, and my heart had broken. All the connections and commonalities Sibby and I had, the ones we relished and celebrated as each other’s very best friend—I would have never wished this one on her, a fractured relationship with one of her parents, especially her dad. She’d always been closer to him, had always felt he was in her corner.

So I know exactly what it would cost her to ask him for this.

“Don’t call him,” I say. I’m mad at Sibby, and I’m confused by her. But I love her, still. I want her to be happy. And if she’d propose something this desperate, then obviously what she needs to be happy is this move. “I can cover it.”

“Yeah?” she says, her voice lilting, musical. Her dad, he can get in my gum cocoon, too. He was so wrong about her. She does have the voice and the face and the body, whatever that means. It’s only that a whole lot of other people in this city do, too.

“Oh, yeah,” I sort of . . . chirp. “It’ll be fine.”

Already I’m thinking about what’s in my bank account right now (my business bank account, thank you very much), how much savings I have, how many regular jobs I have lined up in the next few weeks, when my next quarterly tax payment is. It is supremely, face-punchingly annoying that I’m thinking about how useful a quantitative analyst who does math in his head quickly might be right now. A handsome pocket calculator on demand.

“Can we work out the details later? I really need a shower.”

“Sure, of course.” She picks up her phone from where it sits beside her box of noodles, checks the time before she speaks. “Why was your day so lousy?”

I stare at her for a long moment. What can I even say in the remaining minutes she’s got to give me? What would even make sense, what with all these long gaps of time between our interactions? I think, painfully, about Reid and his blunt, no-nonsense questions. The ones I said he had no right to ask. He doesn’t, but still.

It wasn’t the worst thing, to be asked.

I don’t really answer her. I shrug and gesture to my wet, bedraggled face and body and tell her to have a good time at Elijah’s. I go to my bedroom and close the door behind me.