“He’s still into that infomercial, huh?”

“It’s entrancing. That knife can chop through anything. I’m thinking of getting one.”

I raise my eyebrows at him as I push the cart toward the frozen food aisle. “For all the cooking you do?”

Milo shakes his head. “Someday I’m gonna want to slice a tomato into paper-thin slices and I’m not going to have the knife to do it.”

He reaches into the case and pulls out the largest bag of pizza rolls I’ve ever seen. “Okay, what else?”

“Dad needs sweat pants.”

“And sweat pants he will get!” Milo says, thrusting a fist in the air as if he’s leading the charge. A wide-eyed baby in a shopping cart laughs at him, and Milo stops to examine him. “Well, aren’t you cute. How old?”

As he talks to the baby’s mother, cooing at the appropriate times (as if he knows anything about babies!), I’m reminded that this is Milo’s thing. He’s charming and friendly and strangers love him. Everyone is his friend and I’m sure in a month he’ll have scammed his way into a guest room in a nicer place, and then a few months later he’ll end up sharing one of the fanciest apartments in town. I’m not even sure if he knows he’s doing it, but Milo can give you one look and make you do whatever he asks. All these years later, it’s still incredibly annoying.

I inspect the individual frozen meals while he talks to the mom, and when he finally starts walking away he calls over his shoulder, “I’m serious about that sleep training book. It’s the best one out there!”

“What the hell do you know about sleep training?” I whisper as we walk toward the clothing department. “You don’t have a child. Do you even know anyone with a child?”

Mock-offended, Milo puts a hand on his chest. “Chloe. I know things.”

“Right,” I mutter. “Hey, when’s the last time you went to visit Dad?”

“Yesterday,” Milo says smugly. “Did you know his TV doesn’t work?”

I groan and fill Milo in on the situation.

“Uh, wow,” he says, inspecting a pair of sweat pants before making a face and putting them back on the shelf. “And here I thought Ralph across the hall was some sort of TV-busting freak.”

“He very well could be, but I doubt it,” I say, picking up the pair of sweat pants Milo put back. “What’s wrong with these?”

Milo wrinkles his nose. “They’re so . . . sweat pants.”

I give him an incredulous look. “What, you’re some sort of fashion expert now that you have a model boyfriend and you sell jeans? They’re supposed to be sweat pants. Dad has too much trouble getting any other pants on and off these days.”

I toss them in the cart and look at Milo when he doesn’t say anything. “Hey,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Until I visited him, I didn’t . . . I didn’t know how bad things were. With Dad.”