It’s after midnight, I’m sure. My voice is hoarse and scratchy. I don’t think I’ve talked so much to anyone ever. I don’t tell him about my dad or the motorhome, but I tell him about stealing Mrs. Varnick’s car, even though I don’t say why. He laughs big and I can see all his tiny teeth. I make it sound like something that happened ages and ages ago. When I was just a kid pulling a prank. I tell him about Ida and her orders and he tells me about how he tended bar to pay for college. We swap stories about weird customers and crazy cooks.

The conversation lulls for a second and I yawn too big to stifle it.

Adam taps my leg. “Alright, up,” he says.

I stand. He pulls the futon away from the wall and I help him lay it flat again. We hold opposite corners and fluff the sheet up in the air like it’s a parachute. We don’t talk, as if the process of making the bed is a solemn occasion. I feel the weight and the strangeness of it low in my belly.

When we’re done, Adam says, “Are those enough pillows?” like an apology, like he’s supposed to know how many pillows I like. “Were they enough?”

“Yeah.” I stare at his lips, at the stubble along his jaw. This time the bed is made and I know where he sleeps and that he’s not expecting anything from me. But no one has ever talked to me the way he does, with all the little details of a life that’s not like mine. Everyone I knew before—they were people who were around my whole life. We lived from the same angle. But Adam is interesting and he thinks I’m interesting too, and he’s seen so much more of everything than I have.

“Well, okay,” he says, and I think he gets what I can’t make myself say. But then he turns off the light and starts to walk into the hallway.

I don’t want this to end. I grab at his hand. Just a quick pull.

And then his lips are on mine and his body is on mine and the sheets on the bed we made are quickly crumpled. He kisses my collarbone, the palm of my hand, smooth skin on the insides of my wrists, places no one’s thought to kiss before, and he’s not in any kind of hurry about it.