“They say that word, like, fifty times an episode,” Phil told Elizabeth.

“They do not,” Elizabeth responded, smiling as she dug a spoon into the frozen yogurt she’d ordered with her hummus wrap.

“They do so,” Phil said. “That’s all they say on this show. ‘Meanwhile, while Samantha was going uptown, I was going downtown,’” he said, in his best female voice. “‘Meanwhile,’” he continued, accentuating the word, “‘while Miranda was being a lawyer, Carrie slept with, like, a hundred guys.’”

“Shut up,” Elizabeth barked playfully, throwing a pillow at his face.

Later on Phil put Elizabeth to bed in his room, and he happily slept on the couch, fighting all urges to go in and join her. By the time Elana returned the next day, it was clear that he and Elizabeth were on the precipice of coupledom. A week after Phil returned Elizabeth to her apartment, she treated him to a thank-you dinner. After the meal they both leaned in for a kiss, in front of her door and then his, and then she followed him inside.

They spent much of the rest of the cold season traveling in socks between their fourth-floor apartments, sometimes allowing Elana to hang out as a third wheel, sometimes shutting her out by hiding in Phil’s apartment.

When baseball season began in May, Phil gave Elizabeth and Elana free tickets in the grandstand and asked his vendor friends to slip them kettle corn and sodas. He took Elizabeth home to his mother’s and showed her where he used to play basketball in high school. He was secretly thrilled when she seemed impressed that there was a photo of him in the trophy case, from his senior year, just before he went off to play college ball. They had sleepovers three times a week, giving Phil enough space to feel as though he had a nice girlfriend but that it wasn’t too serious.

It was blissful until the following March, just six months ago, when Elizabeth began asking all the big questions. It was a preseason Sunday. Elizabeth had woken up hours before Phil had any intention of starting his day.

“Are you up?” she asked loudly, waking him.

“Are you?” he muttered, smiling into his pillow.

He could hear her cracking her knuckles. He turned to her, but she stared ahead, her eyes glassy, her lips hardened into a line.

“What’s up?” he asked, his stomach suddenly burning with a bad feeling. She turned to him. She was sitting up straight so she looked down onto his face, her eyes sad and tired as if she’d spent the morning rehearsing a conversation that she expected to end poorly.

“Phil,” she said, taking a long pause.

“Yes,” he responded, sitting up next to her. There was at least a foot between them.

“I have this nagging feeling that this is it.”

“That what is it?” Phil said, his tone giving away that he understood what she meant all too well.

“What I mean is, is this it? Are we going to move in with each other at some point? Are you thinking marriage or kids? I mean, I’m not. Not right now. But I’m going to be done with school next year, and we’ve been together for a year and a half, and I’ve just had this weird feeling for a while that this is it.”