Page 73 of Second Alarm

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"No." He says it like a fact.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to be proud of that."

"You are."

"Is this — " I gesture vaguely at the ceiling duck. "Is this what I've been avoiding."

"Which this?"

"The not being funny. The looking at someone and having them look back."

"I think so."

"I could get used to it." A breath. Another. "That was a scary sentence."

"I know."

"I'm going to make a joke in about thirty seconds because I have to."

"Take your time."

Thirty seconds go by. I think about the basil plant and the tomato plant on his windowsill. I think about the fact that Ty Brennan keeps a basil plant alive in a second-floor apartment in Montana. I think about the fact that I'm in love with the kind of man who keeps a basil plant alive and drove across town at nine forty-five to tell me he couldn't keep doing this in the dark.

"Your basil is thriving."

"Yeah."

"That's a completely unreasonable basil, Ty. That basil is — "

"Hanna."

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you came over."

"Me too."

"Was that the joke?"

"No. The joke is coming."

"Okay."

I wait.

I don't find the joke.

For the second time in a week, I fail to find one and I don't panic about it. I lie on my back in Ty Brennan's bed with my hand on my own stomach next to his hand on my stomach, and the lamp on, and the ceiling duck above me, and I let the absence of the joke be the thing in the room.

"I'll tell him," I say, very quietly.

"Okay."

"Not today."

"Okay."

"I don't know when."

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