“I just realized you’ve been putting up with me for almost seven hours now. I’ve just ordered an Uber.”

Wow, seven hours? It hadn’t felt that long. Was this some sort of rejection preempt? Like, criticizing himself so I couldn’t do it first? “No, I enjoyed it. It was fun. You should’ve let me take you home, though.”

He shook his head. His shoulders seemed to lose some of their tension, though. “Nah, it’s late.” He folded the blanket while I got up to walk him to the door. He passed it back to me, and I took it, and he held onto it for just a second too long. He must really be dreading going home.

“I hope everything’s okay back at your house,” I said.

He seemed surprised. “Oh, yeah, it’ll be fine. No stress. I’d almost forgotten about that, actually.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Darcy, thank you, but honestly, I’ve been living with them for seventeen years now. I know the ropes. I’m fine.”

“Okay. Well. I’ll see you, then, I guess.”

“I’ll let you know if I need any advice,” he said. “And … good luck with Brooke. I know advice isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but if you do need to talk about it, I’m an okay listener. I think.”

I smiled. “You are. ’Night.”

It wasn’t until I closed the door behind him that I realized he’d called me Darcy.

Back in the living room, everything was normal, until it wasn’t. The first thing I noticed that looked off was that the box of tissues that usually sat on top of the coffee table was now on the floor, slotted in behind one of the wooden table legs. That wasn’t that weird, I figured—maybe Brougham had grabbed a tissue without me noticing. But on a hunch, I scanned the rest of the room.

It was the same, but different, in small, subtle ways. The patchwork blanket we kept folded at the unused end of the sofa had been turned so it faced the armrest in a diamond. The coffee table had been moved out by about half a foot, leaving deep tracks in the carpet from where it’d sat stationary for the last several years. Our hot chocolate mugs were now perfectly back to back so they formed mirror images of each other, and the curtains were drawn just enough to let a sliver of streetlight through, and the floor lamp was shining light into the hall when it was definitely facing the sofa this afternoon.