“You don’t say. No, I mean, what were you painting? Like, your walls? Or a canvas?”

“Oh! Right. I was doing some watercoloring.”

“Good, because in my experience painting your walls in the middle of the night never ends up being a good idea.”

“I take it you’ve made some questionable color choices in the past?”

“That’s how I ended up with a blood-red bedroom a few years back.”

“There’s something very . . . King Henry the Eighth about a red bedroom.”

“You mean the king who killed all his wives?”

“Yeah. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s kinda like, is it possible to have a blood-red bedroom and not sleep in a velvet robe? I don’t think so.”

“You’re deeply weird, Hoffman.”

“You’re the one with the red bedroom.”

“It only lasted until the paint dried, and then I promptly painted over it. Anyway, I didn’t know you did watercolors.”

“Yup. Some oils, too.”

“How’d you get into that?”

“Well, there were some fine arts courses required for my graphic design major. But even before that I was drawing and painting all the time. My parents had this thing on the weekends when we were little that Saturday and Sunday mornings were supposed to be for quiet activities. So, my parents and my sister would usually read, and I would draw. Once they realized that art would keep me quiet for more than five consecutive minutes, they always made sure I had all the supplies I’d need.”

“The way you talk about your family, it seems like you guys are close.”

“Yeah. My sister and I are. She only lives a few blocks away from me. And my parents are really good people. They can be a little . . . too involved, I guess you’d say? So, over the last few years I’ve had to put up some . . . I guess you could call them boundaries. Which means that maybe we’re not as close as we used to be, but it’s a good trade because I no longer have to suppress the urge to tear my hair out whenever we talk.”

“What kind of boundaries?”