Page 61 of Go Back to December

He grumbles a response.

“One more night.” I unstrap the second boot. “Then you’ll be rid of us both.”

His lips work around a smart reply, but after searching my face, he vaults himself toward the bathroom and slams the door.

By the time he hops into the kitchen, I’m pouring my second cup of coffee, scrambling eggs, and frying up the small sausages his mother left us.

He settles onto the barstool and takes a long sip of coffee. “What’s going on?”

“Pretty sure it’s breakfast.” I scoop up eggs and sausages. When I turn, he’s eyeing both our plates carefully.

“You will not eat six sausages.”

He gives a wounded sort of shrug, and I toss one more on his plate but leave the last one for myself.

The wary look remains in his eyes when I hand him his breakfast.

“Are you still upset about yesterday?” He pauses. “Give me some more time with your answers. I promise I’m working on it.”

“I know you are.”

He swallows a generous portion of eggs. “Seriously. What’s wrong?”

My phone pings me a save. The notification tells me my mom’s package is waiting for me in the lobby of Manny’s building. It’s the perfect excuse to get some space. “I’ve got to run back to my apartment, grab some clothes.”

“Use the washer.”

“It’s currently occupied with the sheets from the spare bed.”

Baz stops chewing. “Why?”

“Jam.”

He shakes his head, takes two more heaping forkfuls of breakfast and studies the slush falling outside. “I’ll come with you.”

“I won’t be that long.”

He levels a long-lashed stare at me. “We can take my car.”

My two-timing phone won’t stop buzzing.

I’ve set the thing to quiet mode, so Baz won’t flip out about distracted driving while I’m behind the wheel of his machine child. In the fifteen minutes it takes to drive over to Manny’s apartment, it buzzes at least three dozen times.

My denials that nothing is happening, and the fact we’ve crossed Money Honey City Limits, heading deep into the Watch Your Purse Quarter, has Baz scowling by the time I pull into the secured parking garage beneath Manny’s building.

“I thought you lived near the university,” he says.

“The couple I was renting from had their foreign assignment curtailed last month.”

In the elevator, I skim the sequence of messages on my phone from my mother, Lacy, my father’s last commanding officer. Sephora helpfully reminding me I’ve abandoned the expensive under-eye concealer I can’t afford in my shopping cart. They can all wait for a response until I have Baz out of my hair.

We stop at the lobby to retrieve a brown paper-wrapped package before heading up seven stories to Manny’s apartment. As we walk inside, I evaluate it through Baz’s discerning scrutiny: galley kitchen with dollhouse-sized appliances, building-issued plastic blinds. The vacant living area, walls bare of everything except the hooks left from Manny’s pictures. It looks like the Grinch stole Christmas.

I walk over to the one piece of furniture in the room, a dresser that doubles as a desk, and shuffle through my feeble supply of clean clothes so I can restock my overnight bag. Manny offered to move his packed boxes out of his closet when I came to stay, but I told him not to bother; I hadn’t imagined I’d be here this long.

Baz cranes his neck down the hall. “Where’s your roommate? Hightailing it to a non-extradition country?”

“Technically, Manny’s my landlord. This is his apartment. I’m not on the lease. And as you can see, it’s almost up. He’s moving out.”