Adrian stayed for dinner that evening.
He did not ask if he could. He just stayed, which had started happening naturally in the
way that things happen naturally when two people have stopped pretending the space
between them requires formal negotiation. Ethan made him sit at the kitchen table while
he explained the contents of the structural engineering books in order of complexity, which
took forty minutes and which Adrian followed with genuine attention and only two questions,
both of which Ethan answered without breaking his stride.
I made pasta. We ate. The evening was ordinary in the specific way that evenings become
ordinary when you have stopped being in crisis and started simply being in a life.
After Adrian left and Ethan was in bed I stood at the kitchen window with my te
