“I sold fifty e-books in New Zealand. I didn’t finish my novel in Dubai. I need this to work.”

“Your book came out two years ago,” Marianne said. “There’s no rush. It’s not a race.” This was something she often told herself when she was notified, via email, of publication news from their program.

“Three years ago,” he said.

“What?”

“It came out three years ago. And I’m on the hook for another one.”

“Oh,” she said. No real money exchanged hands to mark the publication of poetry, no promises of a second book made to eager publishers. At the end of each of her grants, Marianne had typed up reports to the funding organizations, but had heard very little back other than reminders that they were one-time grants. It was hard for her to imagine herself in Eric’s situation. But she did not want this idea, which she’d dreamed up in her twenties, to be a career maker for either of them.

“You can always teach—”

“I want this to work,” he said. He set his cup on the nightstand and lay back, on top of the bedspread, and closed his eyes. Suddenly she saw him as he must have seen himself: a washed-up, divorced novelist who’d quit the only job he’d ever had that offered benefits. A financial failure who desperately wanted to impress his older brother in a get-rich-quick scheme. A jealous ex-boyfriend who backed away from confrontations with pushy older men.

Marianne put a tentative hand on Eric’s shoulder, and he didn’t stir. She knelt on the bed next to him, gently shaking him until his eyes opened.

“Hey,” he said sleepily. He reached up to brush a strand of hair away from Marianne’s face and let his hand come to rest on her bare shoulder, where it felt solid and reassuring. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to lie next to him, in the comfortable curve of his arm, and let him stroke her hair and her face, tell her that she was beautiful. It would be easy to reach for the lamp and turn it off, to concede to whatever might happen in the dark.

But this moment, drunken and confused and slightly pitiful, wasn’t the right one. It was too much like their first time, and nothing at all like what she’d imagined in his absence. They couldn’t fall back into old patterns, not now, anyway—it would be better, more fulfilling, to wait. Wasn’t that what the Christians told themselves? Twelve days, that was all. “You have to get up,” she said briskly, moving away from him on the bed. His hand dropped to his side. “You can’t stay here.”

“But I’m comfortable,” he said, closing his eyes again. She turned on the overhead light.

“If you want this to work, you can’t have people here thinking we’re cohabiting.”

“Cohabiting?”