I look around, taking quick inventory of where my stuff is so I can exit efficiently. I can’t stay. Keep moving or get stuck. Those are the only options. If I go for breakfast with Justin, before you know it, I’ll be living here, working for Arnie, falling completely and totally short of every fantasy Justin has ever had about me. The whole reason people like me is that I always leave a little too soon.

I hear the whine of the shower starting. I have ten minutes at most. My limbs are leaden, lazy, brain full of fuzz. I can’t get up. It’s cold and lonely out there. I pinch the inside of my wrist with my other hand, hoping I can snap myself out of it, but my eyelids feel heavy. I don’t have any fight left.

And then Justin is back. Body on mine. The wet towel wrapped around him falling to the wayside.

“Where are you headed next?” Justin says after, rolling on his side to look at me.

I shrug. “My plans got pushed around.” I was going to book more gigs from Red Bank. It’s the first time in a long time with a big span of empty in front of me. I should have called places from Arnie’s but it felt nice to just be there.

“So you can go anywhere? Like whenever you want to?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Mostly. I mean, I have to fund it, so there’s work involved.”

“God, you’re so lucky. Even on spring break I’m supposed to be home going to interviews for a summer internship I don’t even want.”

“So why go?”

“My dad’s making me. I want to intern in New York or Washington, someplace real, you know? But I have to spend the summer in Rochester. He won’t pay for me to live anywhere else. He hates the idea that I might actually have fun at some point in my life.”

Justin looks so defeated. It’s real hurt that his dad won’t pay for him to have fun. I can’t imagine his world. He probably can’t imagine mine either. But I do understand feeling stuck and misunderstood.

“What would happen if you came with me instead?” I say. It’s hypothetical. A gift to him, so he can feel like he has choices. It’s safe. He won’t take me up on it.

Justin laughs. “My dad would shit himself.”

I laugh too and run my finger along his arm. “See, technically, you could, though. You have more than one narrow path.”