Always by the climax of Fever Pitch I’ve fallen asleep. There’s something about the beats of the movie or Drew Barrymore’s adorable smile that feels comforting. I pretend to hate it but I don’t at all. Watching rom-coms with my brother and best friend feels like home again, sitting on Mom’s couch draped in the afghan made by our great-aunt, eating an endless rotation of snacks.

Jer and Wes are riveted, the snacks long forgotten, and I’m drifting in that in between place, asleep but aware. All it takes to pull me out of this is my phone, vibrating against my thigh. With the first buzz, I’m conscious. The second and my eyes are open. Then it doesn’t stop vibrating. “Ew,” I say, groggy. “Someone is calling me.”

Jer and Wes turn to stare down at it with me. “What is happening right now?” Wes asks.

“I don’t know.” I poke at the phone, ready to decline the call, when the phone number registers in my sleep addled brain. “Shit. It’s the restaurant’s landlord.” I jump up, clutching it like it’s a precious gem. “I need to take this.”

Jeremy jumps up too and holds open the door to his bathroom like it is his own private office. A window over the bathtub lets weak winter light in. If I stand sideways, there’s just enough room to fit between the sink and the toilet. He closes the door behind me, slamming it once, twice before the latch finally clicks.

“Greg,” I say into the phone. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he says. Greg always sounds tired, no matter what time of day, weekend or holiday, or even the nature of his phone call. He could be calling to tell me he’s retiring and still sound like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.

“How’s it going?” I ask, my nerves making my voice too high. Greg never calls. He emails, and his emails sound tired, too. But if he’s calling, if it can’t go in an email, or wait for him to have a chance to stop by the restaurant, it’s not good news.

He sighs. “You know. It’s going.”

“Great,” I say. “That’s just great. It’s going here, too.”

There have been a few times in my life when I knew what was going to happen next. When Mom told us she had cancer, I knew. Not her diagnosis, but I knew she was sick. When the cancer came back, I wasn’t surprised when Dad left. As if my brain knew to prepare me before my heart even caught up to what was happening.

There are nights at the restaurant when I know, this customer will be a jerk before they’ve placed their drink order or that server will call in sick before they even pick up the phone. I wait for that feeling now, that knowing, to tell me what to expect, but there’s nothing.

“I would have stopped by the restaurant,” he says. He’s a straight-to-business kind of guy, which usually I appreciate. But right now, my heart pounds in my throat. Right now, business might mean he’s calling the rent due early.