let stone sing @idontevensaythatword - Tumblr Blog

43. tea, orange juice, and gin or in vino fuckin’ veritas

PREVIOUSLY: Kat unexpectedly reconnects and reconciles with Chris; Lizzy spends an unusually relaxed afternoon hanging out with Mark after locking herself out of the apartment; Sean is once again forced to chaperone Jerry’s date and spends the whole time arguing with Kat until finally stumbling into something they agree on; Mark becomes fixated on Kat's Soundgarden article which amuses everyone around him; and finally, he breaks the news to her that he will be moving out after the summer which, to his delight, seems to upset her more than she’d like to admit; it becomes increasingly obvious to all their friends and acquaintances that something is going on between the two of them but they continue sidestepping the issue with jokes, teasing, and ambiguous lack of resistance.

I lean back in my chair, squinting at Mark. “You’re such a - and I cannot stress that enough - freak.”

He’s been stirring sugar into his tea for at least three solid minutes, non-stop. Just circling the teaspoon over and over and over, clinking it against the cup every couple of seconds, his gaze pierced straight through a notebook he has lying open on the table.

“And yet, here I am,” he finally looks up, setting the spoon down and picking up his pen again, “invited to sit with you.”

“You invited yourself.”

“See? Didn’t even need to resort to telegrams.”

“That’s because we still live at the same place,” I motion vaguely down the street where our apartment building is around the corner.

It’s one of those Seattle summer days that’s abundantly warm and humid, so I decided to take myself out for coffee and a pastry. I was already at the corner of this street, the coffee shop coming into view, when I saw Mark jogging towards me across the road. And then somehow it turned into this: sitting outside, talking about nothing in particular, people watching, soaking in the sun, reading, writing.

“So dramatic,” he leans back in his chair with a smirk, picking up his notebook as he does.

I like that he invited himself. I like being around him a lot. I like that he goes out of his way to spend time with me… In a very teenage girl kind of way, I also - unfortunately - like it when other people see me with him, see that we’re friends, that we know each other. I really hope this won’t stop when he moves…

“What?” Mark asks and I realize I’ve been staring at him, head tilted, not saying anything for a while.

“Nothing.”

“That didn’t look like nothing.”

“It was a passing thought.”

“About?”

I shrug, taking a sip of my coffee to buy myself a second. “About how you seem like you’d be more of a green tea drinker than black.”

“I see.” He doesn’t look convinced but he doesn’t pry. “Do you actually like coffee or just the idea of it?”

“What a bizarre question.” I love that he asked that; I don’t know anyone else who would even think of such a question.

“Well?”

“Both, I guess,” I admit and he nods as if I’ve confirmed a theory.

“Do you actually read all those poetry books,” he nods at the little stack of three between my coffee and half-eaten croissant, “or do you carry them around to intimidate people?”

“I contain multitudes.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It’s from Whitman, you philistine.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Mark laughs quietly and goes back to his notebook, immediately scribbling something down like a string of thoughts and ideas was running through his mind parallel to our chitchat. The conversation wanders after that. Books, music, a guy who just walked by wearing a beanie despite it being seventy degrees, whether pigeons know they're pigeons; mostly nonsense. Then somehow we end up talking about childhood pets.

“I thought you grew up in a house where fun had to be approved by a committee,” I say, watching Mark click his pen against the open notebook page, after he informs me the only pet he’s ever had was a dog. I have a very specific image in my head of what kind of people Mark’s parents were, based on all the nuggets of information I’ve collected over the last few months, and a dog seems like way too fun of a pet.

“We had a brief, highly controversial period of absolute lawlessness,” Mark says, a small, genuine smile tugging at his mouth. “I found this stray mutt down by the train tracks when I was eight. I dragged her home fully prepared for the lecture of my life.”

“And they actually let you keep her?”

“Shockingly, yeah. Looking back, I’ve always assumed my parents must’ve been on the verge of divorce that day or something. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that a stray dog was the better option.”

“What was her name?”

“Howdy.”

“Howdy,” I echo. “Excellent.”

“Yeah… The lawlessness didn’t last very long though.”

“No? What happened? To Howdy?"

“Actually, it was really sad,” a shadow of a frown ripples across his face out of nowhere. “My parents wouldn’t tell me anything at first so I assumed she must’ve run away but I didn’t understand why she would. At this point, I was convinced that she was meant to find me and we were meant to be together for the rest of time. So then I thought that maybe somebody kidnapped her. I was gathering supplies to make posters to hand out in the neighborhood when my father sat me down and told me that Howdy’s been sent away to a turtle farm,” he chuckles but the traces of sadness still cling to his features, pooling in the depths of his brown eyes. He looks so strangely vulnerable… He looks so…different than I’ve ever seen him.

I remember how I felt when my hamster died; I was in third grade and the sadness was bigger than the world. And Howdy’s story sounds ten times worse. And I think it’s still what makes a twenty-seven-year-old Mark feel that same, big sadness.

“So then a few years later, another shocking realization came when I figured out there’s no such thing as turtle farms for retired dogs. What?” He peers at me curiously a second later. That’s very sweet, actually. Mark’s always very honest but there are definitely things that he doesn’t share with the world, and I feel like this is one of them; this tender, raw, unabashedly childish memory.

“It’s…very sweet…”

“That my parents put my dog down and didn’t tell me?” He laughs dryly. “That’s messed up, Novak.” His face settles into its usual smirk. Mark is very sweet, I guess. And I never realized that that’s a very attractive quality… I thought that’s just a word Lizzy defaults to when she can’t remember any other adjectives.

This is so unfortunate. The more I get to know him, the more into him I am. The more time I spend with him, the more I need, the more entitled I feel to his time… And he thinks men and women are bound by nothing but proximity and biology! Shit. It’s humiliating how much I’d like to be the exception to his stupid, cynical worldview.

I grab the rest of my croissant and take an unnecessarily angry bite of it, or so it feels. Mark’s still looking at me - or through me… Probably still thinking about Howdy. And then, without warning, he reaches across the table, for my face, picks something off my chin and…eats it. I feel like this is one of those moments that are so odd, my brain sort of short circuits so I just stare at him and he’s staring back, probably realizing what he just did.

“Did you just,” I say slowly, feeling laughter starting to bubble in the pit of my stomach, “eat that…”

“Yeah, sorry… That was entirely force of habit,” Mark holds my gaze a moment longer, his brown eyes comically big and round, and then we both crumble into easy laughter.

This could be a date. I mean, this would be a good date, if it was. Which most dates are not. Obviously, this is not a date but wiping food off someone's face is not necessarily a strictly platonic move, when executed smoothly. In any case, maybe I would consider going on more dates if they didn’t feel stiff and fake, and like everyone’s trying to impress each other and silently keeping score, laughing too loud and sitting up too straight… This is objectively not a date but it’s better than probably any date I’ve actually been on, which is really fucking unfortunate.

* * *

A waitress comes over and asks if we want anything else. “I’ll take a Coke and a chocolate chip cookie, thanks.”

Kat tips her head back with a quiet groan. “You have the dietary preferences of a runaway twelve-year-old.” The waitress leaves smiling to herself and Kat goes back to staring at the page for a little while, absentmindedly rubbing her thumb against the paper. I watch her for a moment; she looks different when she’s reading. Softer around the edges somehow, less like she’s waiting to make fun of something before it can make fun of her first.

“What?” She asks without looking up.

“What?”

“You’re staring. Are you experiencing any face drooping or arm weakness?”

I snort quietly and glance toward the book again. “Which poem?”

She hesitates, like she’s deciding whether she wants to let another person into whatever space she’s currently in mentally. Then she angles the book slightly toward herself again instead of showing me. A beat passes. Then, very casually, like she’s talking mostly to herself, she reads a few lines under her breath.

“The god of dirt

came up to me many times and said

so many wise and delectable things, I lay

on the grass listening

to his dog voice,

crow voice,

frog voice; now,

he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever.”

Her voice is flattened out from lack of performance, no theatrics, no irony coating it; just the words. And for some reason that gets me. Not the poem itself, not even the act of reading poetry for someone, but the fact that she sounds faintly embarrassed by sincerity while still meaning every word of it.

Kat glances up immediately afterward, already halfway back behind the curtain. “Disgustingly earnest,” she says and I laugh with a shake of my head.

“For someone carrying around Mary Oliver in public, you’re pretty hostile toward emotional vulnerability.”

“You know, when I first met you, I would have never guessed you’d even be familiar with the concept of poetry.”

“Once again, Novak, you and I majored in the same thing.”

“I know, it’s just unexpected,” she cackles.

The waitress drops off my Coke and cookie, Kat looks back down at her book eventually, a smile still tugging at her lips. I drop my eyes back to a page I’ve been writing words that don't belong anywhere near each other and rearranging notes on. Or lyrics. Or a grocery list accidentally masquerading as lyrics. Hard to tell sometimes.

A few minutes later, Kat reaches across the table, breaks off a piece of my cookie, and pops it into her mouth. “Well, well. Look how the tables have turned.”

“Huh?”

“In all fairness, you are usually an excellent source of food.”

“Oh,” she breathes out a barely-there chuckle.

“Decent hand towel too.”

Another quiet laugh, her gaze still glued to the pages of her book. I wonder if she’s actually as oblivious as it seems. The whole ‘to Mark, I’m not even a woman’ comment. The way she said it was like it’s self-evident, like there’s no other possible interpretation. I tap my pen against the paper.

“That's still a very strange thing to think, by the way.”

Kat glances up. “The hand towel thing?”

“Sure. I don’t generally hang out with hand towels this much. The whole rest of the thing too.”

She squints at me but doesn’t say anything, just waits, I guess. A corner of her mouth twitches. “This will sound like another one of those things that’s in line with my inner fifth-grader…” I start, unsure if I have the guts to finish it how I want to finish it. Maybe Gwen was onto something with her unsolicited advice; maybe I could stand to tell Kat things a little more, a little more plainly.

“Ooh! Always exciting when that happens. Lay it on me, Arm,” she looks directly at me and after a pause that’s objectively too long, I lower my gaze to my notebook. The problem is that what I actually want to say is: of course I think of you as a woman, you idiot. Which immediately sounds insane. Not because it isn't true, but because there's no version of that sentence that doesn't make me sound like a creep or that won’t scare her.

“You’re…statistically one of my favorite people to be around,” I say instead.

When I look up again, she’s still staring straight at me, sort of smiling, sort of fighting it. “Well.”

“Don't make it weird.”

That earns me a tickled laugh from her and I feel unreasonably pleased with myself. A few moments pass; people wander by on the sidewalk, somebody’s dog barks across the street, Kat flips her page. Then, without looking at me, amusement settles across her face like she's still turning the words over: “That does sound like something a fifth-grader would say.”

As is customary, Kat soon completely derails and deflects the conversation, jumping from one topic to another. She talks with her hands a lot, like if she stopped moving them she'd lose track of what she's saying, and she has a lot to say.

Right now she's explaining something about coffee, I think, with the sort of conviction usually reserved for political revolutions. I think she's still mildly offended I dared to question her addiction. She has one hand wrapped around her cup, the other sketching invisible diagrams in the air. Every now and then the sunlight catches in her hair and makes it look like gold for a second before disappearing again. It's distracting. Everything about her is distracting. Without a doubt the most attractive hand towel I’ve ever seen.

My mind wanders to that thing she said to me on the phone about Cornell being into Gwen because obviously, you’ve seen her, she’s gorgeous… Fucking insane. It’s like Kat herself doesn’t know she’s a woman. At the very least she has some pretty distorted ideas of what she looks like, or how people see her, which is weird. For how pretty she is, you’d expect her to be way more obnoxious about it.

“Are you even listening to me?” She cuts into my pathetic thoughts.

“Of course.”

“What did I just say.”

“That coffee with milk and sugar is a moral failure and anyone who drinks it should reconsider their life choices.”

She narrows her eyes. “Okay, you caught the gist.”

“Read me another one.”

“What?” Her eyebrows now knit together for a split second.

“Poem.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because. Reading poetry aloud is mortifying.”

“You already did it once.”

“That was an accident.”

“Do it again.”

Her eyes remain fixated on mine, like she’s trying to determine if I’m actually asking or if there’s a punchline coming. “You sound weirdly earnest right now.”

“I am weirdly earnest right now,” I assure her with a grin.

She looks back down at one of her books, flipping it open, and for a moment the silence is tinted with faint sounds coming from inside the coffee shop, the occasional car engine, somebody hollering down the block. Then she starts reading out loud; again, not performatively, not trying to sound profound, just loud enough for me to hear.

“When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”

I go very still without meaning to, like I’m afraid to startle her, and her irises continue to slide down the page, wordlessly now, until she speaks again a moment later:

“I don’t particularly love the middle part,” she glances up.

“Continue your performance, Novak.”

“Hey guys, just so you know, we’ll be closing in fifteen,” the same waitress that’s been helping us comes out to let everyone know - although there’s not much of everyone anymore, there’s only two other people sitting at another table outside, not sure if there’s anyone at all left inside.

I reach for Kat’s wrist and take a look at her watch. “Shit. I gotta go,” I tell her as I grab my things and start getting up.

“Was my reading that bad?”

She gets a chuckle out of me. “Try not to become a bath towel while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I nod once like that’s a reasonable thing to say to another human being and head down the sidewalk. Halfway to the corner, I glance back; she’s already reading again, smiling at the page.

* * *

It would be a lie to say I didn’t notice this becoming our routine but there’s just something about how easy it came that makes it feel like it snuck up on me. I offered to take Lizzy to work one, two, three times, then she asked me the next time. And before I knew it, I was knocking on her door every morning, like clockwork. By now I've learned that walking into the Geek’s apartment before nine means finding some version of the same ongoing scene.

First of all, there’s usually a Mudhoney member or two scattered around the place, behaving as though they pay rent there - making food, performing unsolicited comedy routines for a room full of half-awake people, arguing about something nobody else cares about, whatever. Kat is almost always already dressed for the day, clutching a mug of coffee and either reading, listening to something, or silently observing the chaos like she's conducting a long-term sociological study. We’re…better now, I guess. She gave me a real hard time for a while there but I guess I understand exactly where it came from. Lizzy's the kind of person people instinctively want to protect. Kat just happens to take that responsibility with the enthusiasm of a medieval bodyguard. So I've been making an effort. I think she stopped plotting an assasination that looks like an accident, so there’s definitely progress. I have also learned that Eva is really not a morning person, more so than anyone I’ve met who’s ever described themselves as such. If she’s still home when I show up, I usually find her having one of her amazing smelling breakfasts, like loaded oatmeal or full English, sitting at their big table, away from everyone, eyes closed, slowly chewing her food, tuning everything else out. Gwen tends to be in some kind of hurry, speed-walking around with a mascara wand in her hand, coming out of the other girls’ rooms with armfuls of their clothes in search of the outfit of the day, usually talking about work to nobody but herself.

And of course - Lizzy’s usually just done making breakfast, which I think she started doing later in the morning and making more so I could eat with her, and every time we do, I wonder what I did to deserve such a deeply caring person.

“Hey,” I say as I lean over to kiss her on the temple while she’s plating fried eggs. It’s just her, Eva, and Kat around today. “I brought some orange juice,” I place the jug on the counter.

Lizzy looks at it for a second longer than seems reasonable, then drags her gaze up to meet my eyes. “You brought orange juice?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle a little, mostly in mild confusion at the way she’s looking at me. “I noticed we ran out yesterday morning… I wanted to contribute,” I shrug.

“Jer, that’s so sweet,” she giggles. “You didn’t need to do that!”

“I wanted to,” I say, feeling like I’m suddenly taller by a couple of inches. Lately, every time I do some little thing right, she makes me feel like a golden star boyfriend. And it’s really not hard to do things right around Lizzy. She’s kind and gracious about everything, every little thing, and all I have to do is not fuck it up.

“Thanks, Jer,” she stands on her tiptoes and I still have to bend down to kiss her, which I love.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask as we sit down at the table to eat.

“Pretty good. What about you?”

“Honestly, not enough. I spent half the night listening to Layne spiral about having to move his annual summer party.”

“His…what?”

“It’s this…stupid thing. Every year Layne throws an enormous summer party that starts as a barbecue and gradually mutates into…something nobody can adequately explain afterward,” I huff a laugh at the string of fractured memories. “Usually it's musicians, friends, random people who somehow become friends by the end of the night. The usual Seattle circus. Anyway, because of band schedule, he has to move it to first weekend of August this year, which he thinks is horrible, for some reason.”

“Why is it so horrible to move it?”

“I don’t think there’s any real reason behind it, he just always had it at the end of July,” I shrug. “Anyway, you guys all should come, obviously,” I glance at Kat and Eva as well as I say this.

Kat utters a completely lifeless ‘yay’.

“Woah, control the enthusiasm…” I laugh.

"It's the most enthusiasm you're getting before coffee number two."

"Fair."

“Yeah, sounds fun,” Lizzy beams. “I’ll put it in our calendar.” Then, after a pause, she looks at her two present roommates, "will Gwen want to come?"

The question hangs there for a second. Because, of course, Mike will be there. "Depends," Eva says carefully.

"On what?" Kat asks immediately.

"On whether she wants to."

"Insightful."

"Thank you."

Lizzy bites her lower lip, a worried little frown appearing on her pretty face. "I just don't want it to be awkward."

Kat snorts. "Why would it be awkward?"

Lizzy gives her a look. "Kat."

"Mike can stay home if it’s gonna be awkward for him,” Kat says and we all laugh, except for Lizzy. I mean, he’s my friend but he’s a fucking asshole sometimes and I agree, he’s the one who should worry about running into Gwen, not the other way around.

Eva hums thoughtfully into her coffee. "We could poison him."

Kat nods immediately. "That's true."

"Eva!" Lizzy yelps.

"Not lethally," Eva clarifies.

"Obviously not lethally," Kat agrees. "We're not animals."

"Just enough to make him slightly inconvenienced."

“Or incontinent.”

"Food poisoning is very hard to trace."

“You two are impossible,” my sweet, gentle girlfriend looks between her roommates in horror.

“We’re problem solvers of the household,” Eva grins and goes over to the sink to wash her cup. “Anyway, speaking or parties, my birthday is next Friday,” she looks over at me specifically. “You should come too, Jerry.”

“Sure!” I say immediately. Any opportunity to spend an evening hanging out with Lizzy is a pretty easy sell.

“Mike is absolutely not invited though.”

“Understandably,” I nod at Eva’s clarification.

"I want one evening where nobody's ex-boyfriend becomes a topic of discussion."

"A beautiful dream," Kat says.

“You can bring people along,” Eva looks at me again. "Just not that one. And I guess it’s not really a party, we’re just going dancing with some friends."

"Just," Kat repeats.

"Well..."

"There's like twenty people coming."

"Twenty-five, maybe, actually," Lizzy says. “I’m really not sure, I tried to count but it got confusing.”

"That's a party, Eva," I say.

"It's a gathering."

"That's a party with better public relations."

"Either way, the more the merrier."

"See?" Kat says. "This is why Eva's everyone's favorite."

"She's not my favorite." Immediately after I hear myself say it I question what on earth moved me to do it. Three women stare at me. "That was a trap and I strolled right into it…"

The apartment door swings open. Nobody knocks; nobody ever knocks around here. Matt Lukin wanders inside carrying a six-pack and looking vaguely surprised to find people in the apartment despite the fact that people are always in the apartment.

"Morning." He drops onto the couch, way closer to Kat than necessary, and throws his arm across her shoulders. "What are we talking about?"

"Potential near-homicide," Kat tells him.

"Cool."

"No homicide," Lizzy corrects.

"Boring."

I point at him. "Speaking of, you guys should come to Layne's annual summer party. First weekend of August."

"Yeah, totally," Lukin says immediately.

"Finally, a normal response," I laugh.

"Hold on." Kat squints at him. "Aren't you leaving for tour at the end of July?"

Lukin blinks. "We are?" A beat. "Oh yeah, I guess we are."

Kat drops her head into her hands. "And to think Steve and Mark told me they never even considered another bass player."

"That's unfair," Matt says.

"Is it?"

"I remember most things."

"Name one date."

Matt opens one of the beers. "I know my birthday."

"When?"

He narrows his eyes suspiciously. "Nice try. Anyway, I’m free to party up until end of July, I guess," he looks over at me.

“Lukin!” Kat yelps and he flinches.

“What??”

“You do know you start recording your album next week, right?”

Kat launches into lecturing Matt about calendars like it’s a moral failing and I leave them to it. There’s only so much morning chaos a man can emotionally participate in. When I turn back away from them, I find Lizzy looking at me. Not in the usual way she looks at me - warm, amused. More like she’s studying me now.

“Hey,” she says.

I tilt my head. “Hey.”

“Are you saying yes to Eva’s party,” she asks slowly, “because you feel guilty?”

It takes me a second. “What?”

She doesn’t flinch, just keeps watching me like she’s trying to line something up correctly. “Because of Dee,” she clarifies with a slight winced, like she doesn’t want to bring it up but feels like it’s important to, for whatever reason.

My first instinct is immediate denial, but it’s not even frustration; it’s confusion that she’s connected those two things at all. “No,” I say, too fast. Then I exhale and slow it down. “No. Lizzy, that’s not… not at all.” I run a hand over the back of my neck, glance down at the table for half a second like it might give me better phrasing. “I’m really not doing some guilt math where I owe Eva attendance because of something unrelated that happened,” I say. “That’s not how my brain is working here.”

Lizzy’s expression stays careful. “It just sounded like you said yes immediately,” she says. “You actually always do that, you always default to a ‘yes’ whenever I ask or suggest something. And I don’t want you making decisions from a place where you feel like you have to earn something back.”

I mean, it’s not wrong that I say yes a lot to her. What’s wrong is the reason she thinks I do it. I shake my head again, more certain now. “No,” I say, firmer this time. “Honestly, that’s not it.” I look at her properly so she has to see I mean it. “Saying yes to spending time with you or you being there, or anything like that, it’s…always the easiest decision I make.”

Her eyebrows soften slightly, like she’s still checking if that’s just a nice answer or the real one.

“It’s not obligation,” I continue. “It’s not guilt. It’s not…accounting for anything. It’s just me wanting to spend time with you.” I realise I’m probably overexplaining, but I don’t stop. “I’m not trying to balance anything out,” I say. “I’m just trying to show up where you are.”

Lizzy studies me for a moment longer, then her shoulders ease a fraction, tension leaving her face like it was never fully committed to staying there. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Just making sure.”

“Of course.”

Then she reaches out, fixes something small on my shirt, and leaves her hand there for a fraction longer than necessary. “You’re really nice,” she says, smiling at me now.

“Careful,” I say, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. “I might become unshakable.”

“Eat your breakfast,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am!”

***

I’m one of his favorite people to be around. That has no business sounding as sweet as it does. And it’s made so much worse by the fact that he’s one of my favorite people too. I mean, what is happening here? What does he want with me?? Does he like me? I mean, I know he likes me, but does he actually like me? And if he does, so what! I’ve learned my lesson with Chris - if I’m being honest with myself, I become far too emotionally dependent far too easily for anything casual.

And I’m already too dependent on Mark. I’m already thinking about him leaving for tour. Six weeks. Then he’s back and suddenly everything changes again. Yes, his new apartment is only ten minutes away but things will change fundamentally - there will be no more casual, accidental hanging out. Which should be fine but I don’t feel like it is. I mean, what do I want with him!?

Mark seeks me out, he tells me nice things that sound genuine, he makes me laugh, he makes me curious in a way that’s almost irritating, like my brain won’t sit still, but more importantly than all that, I feel like he sees me. That’s why he’s so fun and easy to be around, but he also sees the shitty parts of me and he acts like they’re not a big deal. That’s probably why I’ve been looking around all evening. Not looking for him. Just…looking around. Like that means something else. That’s really unfortunate. Because then he turns around and talks about how relationships are just a shortcut to sex and how everything’s just a freak accident.

"Well, if it isn't the woman of the hour."

I turn around to see Xana striding over to me, the crowd around her parting like she’s holy.

“Hi,” I say, grinning already, because I haven’t seen her in a while and I always enjoy her oddness.

“How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“I know! I’ve become a published journalist since, I guess,” I blurt the first thing that comes to mind that is not related to my train of thoughts that just got derailed.

“Oh, believe me, I’ve heard,” Xana laughs out. “I’m pretty sure Chris clipped your article for his diary and Andy put it up on his mirror as an aspirational piece. I personally absolutely loved your imagery. Demri and I couldn’t believe how well you captured the soul of it all.”

“Oh, wow… I…” I should just say thank you. “It’s just some words…strung together…”

“Well, they were really good words. And by the way, speaking of Chris… I hear you decided to let him off the hook?”

“I didn’t really have him on any hook,” I crinkle my nose.

“Tomayto, tomahto…” She waves me off, all her bracelets clinking and jingling against each other. “That’s good though. Now we can have you over at our place again.”

“I feel like your obsession with me might be a symptom of some serious cognitive issue…”

"Please! You're just too cool, Kat. You’re cool and more importantly, you’re real. That’s a golden combination. I mean, originally, I just wanted to make sure you weren't the fumble of Stone Gossard's life…”

“Sorry,” I shrug and laugh. “We just weren’t meant to be.”

“Oh that’s alright," Xana arches her eyebrows, "it turns out your love life is way more interesting than his anyway."

"My what?"

"Your love life."

"I don't really have one."

Xana snorts. "Sure. Chris, your ex, said Mark Arm was acting suspiciously possessive of you at the park the other day."

“Oh my god…” I stare straight through her for a second. I am weirdly pleased by that though; both that Chris would think that and then talk about it, and that Mark was, in fact, weirdly possessive with the whole jacket thing. I’m sure it was a one man show put on specifically for Chris, for my benefit. Which is also very nice.

“You’re not denying it?”

“Chris should reassess his choice of words because I don’t understand what exactly is possessive about lending somebody a jacket.”

“I don’t believe that that’s really what you really think but I can’t prove it yet,” she smirks at me.

“You are all insane in that house...”

“Thank you. Anyway, I’ve always liked Mark. He’s very odd in a very delightful way.”

“That’s actually a good way to describe him,” I smile despite myself.

“It also makes sense that you’d be with him. There’s just something about you both that makes sense together. Maybe I should have Demri do a star chart for you…”

“Excuse me?” I contort my face like that’s not an assumption that excites me to the pit of my stomach. “We’re not together.”

“No? I thought I saw you sitting outside a coffee shop a couple of days ago?”

“It was a platonic sitting outside a coffee shop.”

“Ah, right… And why?”

“Why what?”

“Why was it platonic?”

I let out a laugh that sounds way more exasperated than I actually feel. “That's like asking why a squirrel is in a tree.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“It's just where it ended up.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop,” she shakes her head with a defeated smile. “If you say the only interest you have in Mark is purely platonic, I'll drop it.”

Philosophically and otherwise, it’s not. Not in any useful sense, not in any sense that leads anywhere. Not in any sense that changes anything. Just in the way that my stomach does something stupid when he smiles at me. I hesitate a second too long and that is answer enough for Xana, I guess.

“Ah, I know what that look means. So what’s the problem?” She asks and I shrug.

Somehow the fact that it’s Xana, whom I like but don’t know that well or see that often, makes it feel less serious, less daunting. I mean, Gwen and her interventions induce a reaction of physical resistance in me. This is different somehow. “I don't think he's a relationship person,” I say eventually.

Xana tilts her head. "What does that mean?"

I shrug. "I don't know. I think..." I trail off, trying to find words for something I've mostly been avoiding thinking about. "I don't know if he cares about relationships. I think he just sort of stumbles into them without choosing to."

Xana's expression softens slightly. "And you consciously choose them?"

I laugh. "Unfortunately. Usually too consciously."

Xana studies me for a second. "You’re talking about commitment, right?"

"No. Sort of. Maybe." I laugh, already regretting whatever words will come out of my mouth in an attempt to explain myself. "I think a lot of people think commitment is in labels. Which…I guess you kind of need to label things to know what they are… But I think it’s really about the role, you know? The other person has to treat being with me as filling an important role. Not just something that’s an accident.”

"Totally.” She nods slowly, as if she's turning the idea around in her head. "But Kat...that doesn't really sound like a Mark problem."

"What?"

"Aren’t you just describing trust here?"

I open my mouth and then close it again. "No, I'm describing relationships."

"Those are pretty related concepts."

"Sure. But being invested in a person and being invested in a relationship aren't the same thing."

“That's such a specific distinction… It really feels personally curated actually."

I laugh despite myself. "It probably is."

Xana laughs. "You sound very confused."

"I am very confused, Xana."

* * *

"Happy birthday, nerd."

I look up from my drink just in time to see Stone plunk a paper bag down on the table and Jeff lift a hand in a wave, a big grin on his face. "What'd you get me?" I ask.

"An opportunity to feel gratitude."

"That sounds cheap."

"It wasn't."

"Actually, it was kind of expensive," Jeff says.

“This was all Jeff's idea, by the way."

"No it wasn't."

"It absolutely was."

"Stone."

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s gin,” Jeff tells me.

"He literally made us go to three different liquor stores to get this because Eva likes that one."

"I'm going to break your nose, Stone,” Jeff looks at his friend with the affection of somebody looking at a particularly ugly stray cat. "You talk about gin constantly," he says as he shuffles his attention back to me.

"I do not."

"I’ve had to listen to you rank your top ten before."

I narrow my eyes because my annoying coworker is actually right, I do remember disclosing my favorite gins on a particularly slow afternoon at work once. "Okay, maybe I have opinions."

The thing about Jeff is that he's pretty observant when it comes to random details and completely oblivious when it comes to anything that would actually benefit him. He remembers people's favorite drinks, what music they like, the names of their dogs, and then forgets where he left his coffee three times a shift.

I pull the bottle out of the bag and immediately laugh - Bombay Sapphire. "No way!"

"See?" Stone wiggles his eyebrows. "Worth every penny just to see the smile on your face."

"You didn't spend a penny," Jeff glares at him.

"I spent emotional pennies."

Jeff groans. I shake my head and grin. “Thanks guys, this is really nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Jeff’s expression softens around the edges. “Happy birthday, buddy.”

“By the way,” Stone looks at me. “You should come out to Bruce’s party next weekend. I mean plural you, obviously.”

“Kat’s going out of town, Lizzy will probably be busy gazing into Jerry’s eyes, and Gwen thinks Bruce is kinda creepy, so we’ll see…”

“Gwen doesn’t even– Actually, fair. Also fair on the Lizzy things. Where’s Kat going though?”

“California.”

“California!?” Stone looks at me like I just spat in his face. “The fuck she’s going to California for?”

“To see her sister…”

The next hour or so passes in fragments. Somebody I haven't seen in months appears out of nowhere to wish me a happy birthday. A friend of a friend buys me a drink. Gwen drags me into one conversation, Lizzy into another. At some point I'm whisked outside by a group heading for a smoke and end up spending thirty minutes talking to people I barely know about absolutely nothing. Somebody pulls me onto the dance floor for a song. Then another. Then somebody else decides I need a birthday shot. Then Kat makes me take another one with her - tequila, which is a hate crime. By the time I finally loop my way back to the bar, I'm sweaty, slightly overwhelmed, and desperately in need of water.

I find Jeff leaning against the counter, just having finished talking to a couple of people who are now heading for the door. "Hey,” he starts slowly. “Is it just me or did I see Gwen put a martini glass into her purse a little while ago?”

A completely not surprised chuckle erupts from me. “She does that. We keep trying to get her to stop… But we do have some pretty cool glasses at home because of her.”

“Wow. Shows you how good a judge of character I am,” Jeff laughs out. He actually looks mildly shaken by this information, like it’s somehow not compatible with reality.

“Well… You were a dick to me when we first met and now you’re at my birthday party and you brought me a really nice gift. So I guess at least you learn from your mistakes.”

“That I do,” he pulls his lips into a happy grin.

Gwen's stupid question from a couple weeks ago flashes through my head entirely uninvited. So if he asked you out… I feel like this is one of those rare times where we both probably agree, me and Gwen; Jeff is objectively attractive - tall, athletic, nice smile. Doesn’t mean anything needs to happen between me and him, just because we work together.

For a minute we just stand there with our drinks - Jeff with his beer, me with a tall glass of water - and watch the chaos unfold. Across the room, Kat is ordering a glass of something brown and neat, from what I can tell; Lizzy appears to be losing an argument with Gwen, mostly because Gwen has started laughing too hard to participate. Stone is standing on a chair for reasons that remain completely unclear, holding somebody's sunglasses above his head like he won them in battle.

Jeff follows my stare. "Your friends are weird."

"That would be our friends, actually," I laugh at him.

"That's not my friend," he nods in Stone’s general direction.

"You bought me a gift together. You’re in a band together!"

"That's a business arrangement."

He gets another genuine laugh out of me.

"So you’ve been having a good summer so far?"

The question catches me off guard. I see him a couple of times a week, maybe more, typically a couple of hours at a time. Sure, it’s at work, but we chat, we share anecdotes… This question somehow feels…different. Like this is the first time he actually conceptualized me having a life outside of work, outside of playing basketball at the park, outside of school too, probably. “Yeah, so far so good.”

“Doing anything fun? Besides gin?"

I think for a second. "I’ve been getting out for jogs a lot lately. Especially in the evenings, which I really enjoy.” I love running at golden hour in the summer.

"So you just replaced one sport for another," he says it and it almost sounds like a critique, like I should have chosen basketball over jogging.

I roll my eyes. “Trust me, it’s a lot more relaxing just knowing that I can go jogging any time of day, if I feel like it, or not at all. Besides, I have some school work I need to get done before September, which I have a lot more time for now.”

“How much time do you really need for summer school work?”

“Well, yesterday it was six hours."

"What!? That's fucking stupid!"

"The entire concept of education?"

"The amount of hours, Eva,” he gives me a thoroughly unamused look but there’s a smile peeking through. “So the gin was a good gift then?”

“Oh, definitely. Thanks again, I can’t believe you spent all that money on me.”

"I mean,” he shuffles from one foot to another, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t generally spend much money on anything, so… Easy budget to work a bottle of gin into. You know… Just records, guitar strings, art supplies, food."

"Yeah, no surprise there."

“Maps."

I stare at him. "What?"

"Maps?"

I chuckle. "Your budget involves maps? That’s such a weird thing to say."

"It's not."

"It absolutely is."

"It isn't."

"It is."

He grins into his beer. "Okay, maybe a little."

"Road maps?"

"All kinds."

"Why?"

Jeff shrugs. "I don't know, I just like them. I like looking at them. Sometimes they double as art supplies."

"Looking at them? Just as a…hobby?"

Another shrug. "I like seeing how things connect."

I blink. That's actually a better answer than I expected, I’m not even sure why or how. "Huh."

"What?"

"I'm just trying to imagine you sitting at home looking at maps."

"I do lots of exciting things!" His grin flickers to a mildly offended nose scrunch and back.

"I'm sure."

"You're very judgmental for somebody who voluntarily reads academic journals."

I gasp with an extra sprinkling of drama. "Not for no reason though!"

"I know."

"So… What kind of maps? From around here?"

“Sure, here, there, lots of places.”

"What's your favorite one?"

"British Columbia probably."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Jeff takes a drink. "Spent a bunch of time up there when I was a kid. I still get this…feeling when I look at the massive green on the maps, same feeling I had when I was camping and hiking there. I mean, I loved it."

“No way! I used to live in Canada!”

“Nobody used to live in Canada,” Jeff snorts a laugh.

“I did! My dad used to go there a lot for work when I was in middle school…”

“That is like the weirdest fun fact I’ve ever heard.”

“Why?” I feel my face stretch into a curious grin.

“I don’t know, it’s just so random. So you went there with him?”

“Well, yeah, he would take us along. I mean, me, my sister, and my mom. Anyway, our passports got stolen out of our car one year.”

"What?"

"Our whole family's."

“How do you just slip these sentences into an otherwise totally normal conversation… What do you mean they got stolen?"

"They got stolen."

"You can't just say that and not elaborate."

“Well, they did. Get stolen, I mean. Out of our car. And then my parents couldn't get everything sorted before school started."

"So..."

"So we ended up staying."

"For a year?"

"Pretty much." As Jeff’s listening to me, his expression is nothing short of cartoonish, like this is the craziest, most unbelievable thing he’s ever heard. “My sister and I went to school there for a year. That’s why I know French…sort of.”

“No way,” Jeff grins at me, totally entertained…or confused. Or both. “You do not speak French. Do you?..”

"Je parle français."

Jeff squints suspiciously. "That sounded fake."

“C'est vraiment pas si impressionnant que ça. Je suis même pu sûr que je le parle comme du monde. Dans le fond, je l'ai jamais vraiment bien parlé, parce que je l'ai appris avec les autres jeunes à l'école, pas dans les livres, pas de la bonne manière,” I punctuate with a shrug.

He stares. I wait. He continues with the staring. "Okay," he says finally.

"What?"

"I don’t know enough French to evaluate that. It did sound more French, I guess."

I break into laughter. "I'll take it."

Jeff shakes his head. "You're making all of this up."

"I'm not."

"There's just no way. Where do you fit all that cool shit in your head?!"

"J'te le jure!"

He points at me. "See, now you're casting spells."

Before I can answer, Stone interjects; I didn’t even realise he was listening. Or around. "I can confirm this is real, she does in fact speak French."

Jeff jumps. "What the fuck?"

Stone grabs a beer from somebody's hand and takes a sip. "She told me this ages ago."

I blink. "Why do you remember that?"

Stone looks offended. "Because it was interesting." Then he turns to Jeff. "Unlike your map collection."

Jeff closes his eyes. "I don't have a collection."

I start laughing and Stone points triumphantly between us. "You guys should talk more. You both have really weird hobbies."

"Go away," Jeff says.

“Friendship with you being among the weirdest hobby,” I tell Stone and he yelps dramatically before limping away despite being completely unharmed.

"Emotional abuse!" He announces to nobody in particular; a few people cheer.

* * *

Somehow the outside feels almost as suffocating as inside the club - the air is thick with cigarette smoke, humidity, and the general sense of a crowd. As soon as I step out, I recognise a few faces. I wave at a couple people who are also in a band…or between bands…or in multiple bands. Then I chat briefly with a guy I’m not sure how I know… And then I spot Kat, leaning against the wall, smoking, laughing as she flips off a guy walking away, I think it’s her friend Julian…

“Novak, you’re drunk.” My observation arrives way overdue since I’ve seen her take at least four shots of tequila tonight, and that’s just in the hour since I’ve been here. I’m sure there was a preface to that.

“True. Absolutely true, but irrelevant,” she waves it off with her cigarette-wielding hand.

“I mean, drunker than I’ve ever seen you, actually. So might be relevant.”

“Nonsense!” She laughs out, which only makes her sound all the more drunk. “I’m comfortably drunk. I’m ready to have another heart to heart, but this time you have to be the one talking.”

“Okay, what’s the topic?” I crack my knuckles and stretch my neck in all different directions. “I’m ready.”

“You!” She jabs her finger into my chest.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You never talk about stuff that’s on your mind, but you always get me talking. You’re always there to listen to me...even when I don’t necessarily want to talk…”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but thank you?..” I awkwardly crawl over my own words.

“It is a good thing,” she assures me with a vigorous nod, “Kristine also thought you’re a good listener…”

“What?...”

“Yeah, that time Gwen and I overheard her…” She mumbles. “But that’s neither here nor there. Now it’s your turn. Now you talk about you!”

“Anything more specific?” My eyebrows knit together.

“How come you go by Arm?”

“Took a joke too far. Swear to god!” I cut her off before she can protest.

“You don’t believe in god!” Kat laughs out, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

“Swear to the gods of punk. Next question.”

“Okay… Do you miss Kristine?” The words fly out of her mouth so unexpectedly, I almost falter.

“What a strange line of questioning.”

“Do you?” I know I thought she’s more drunk than I’ve seen her, but this is way more than I thought… “She actually still wants to get back together with you!”

“Okay…” “Okay what?” She presses on. “What kind of a thing is that to say? Okay? Just so you know, she thinks that you’re basically meant for each other…”

“I…didn’t realize you’re that invested in my past relationships,” I say instead of asking what it was exactly that she overheard. I guess I’m not entirely sure that I really care. So Kristine allegedly wants to get back together, so what? Fuck that noise…

“It’s just interesting… She said some really not great things about you,” Kat goes on, her voice full of some kind of misplaced bitterness now, “but she still wants you…”

“What’d she say, that I cheated on her?”

“You don’t have to cheat to be an asshole, you know?”

“An asshole? I don’t like where this conversation is going. It’s not fun anymore.”

“See, you never talk about yourself…” Kat pouts, blinking slowly in her drunken haze. “Why did you never invite her along to hang out with us?”

“Why did you make your boyfriend climb out the window?”

“Why can’t you just fucking answer a single question?” She folds her arms over her chest, pouting at me like a toddler mid-tantrum. “Am I not your friend?”

“Why are you picking a fight with me? What the fuck, Novak?”

“Picking a fight by asking you questions about you?” She snorts.

“That’s a super loose interpretation of what’s going on here…”

“Did you even like her?”

“Did you even like Will?” I snap back; Girl by The Beatles starts playing somewhere in the background and it irritates me even more for some goddamn reason. “Or why did you stay with him for a year and then break up on your anniversary?”

“What the fuck…”

“Right. Not as fun the other way around?”

“How do you even know…”

“Lizzy, of course.”

Kat glares at me for a long moment. Then: “You know what, in vino fuckin’ veritas,” she sighs heavily and, for a split second, looks way more sober than two minutes ago. “I was an emotionally unavailable asshole… And I led him on because I liked how he made me feel appreciated and important…” She stops abruptly and two heavy tears drop from her eyes.

“Shit, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay. I’m just really drunk…” She shakes her head and then there’s a silent pause before we both chuckle. “It’s what we all really want though, isn’t it? To be considered and appreciated and just…known…”

“You really are what they call troubled youth,” I tell her, somewhat relieved that these are drunk tears, that this whole conversation is.

Although… These things she keeps demanding I explain, all these different versions of the same question… Do I miss Kristine? Did I like her? Why didn't I bring her around? Why was I an asshole? Why wasn't she with us? Why did we break up? It's all the same question wearing different hats and Kat isn't usually repetitive unless she's stuck on something.

“But maybe you don't agree…” She peers at me, bleary-eyed, and her face goes through yet another three emotions before settling on some kind of annoyed little frown. “You don’t agree. According to you, relationships are basically a freak accident.”

“What?” My voice goes up. I guess I did say something like that. That was a weird night… And she’s still thinking about that?

“You said that.”

“I did not say basically.”

“Mark.”

“Fine. I might have said freak accident.”

“You definitely said freak accident. A sex contract in other words.”

She is still thinking about that. A sex contract? I mean, I see how that could be extrapolated from my words. I didn’t really mean it, or not universally anyway. And she’s still thinking about that. Jesus Christ. That conversation happened weeks ago at this point. I barely thought about it since. Meanwhile Novak apparently took it home, put it on a shelf somewhere, and has been periodically taking it down to get pissed off at it this whole time. Which is interesting. Most bad opinions get one eye-roll from her, maybe a sarcastic comment, and then they're gone forever. This one stuck. It’s actually kind of encouraging. I mean, not the part where she thinks that I’m a sexist dumbass. That's bad. But she cares about my opinion about relationships enough to be pissed off about it. That’s good, I think.

Another thought lands all of a sudden. She wasn't really asking about Kristine, was she? Or not just about Kristine. She's trying to figure out what kind of person I was with her. What kind of boyfriend I was. Huh. That's a terrifying thing to realize halfway through an argument: this is research.

Because I don’t say anything for a moment and just stare back into Kat’s eyes, she finally clicks her tongue, flicks her cigarette butt, and reaches down for a half-empty bottle of bottom shelf whiskey that I hope wasn’t just sitting there when she got here. “Fine, let’s take shots then,” she starts to lift the neck of the bottle to her lips but I snatch it out of her grip before she gets there.

“I think you’ve had enough, actually.”

“The fuck?” She frowns at me like a grumpy toddler, swaying ever so slightly. “You don’t get to tell me–”

“I do, actually,” I swing my arm away from Kat so she can’t reach the bottle in my hand when she tries; and she does several times. “Stop it!” I scowl at her now, getting a little out of breath from the bizarre dancing with the bottle in one hand and using my other to keep this lunatic away. She’s not super fast or coordinated in this state of drunkenness, which really aids in keeping her at bay. “You can’t even stand straight, stop being a bonehead and let me get you some water.”

“You don’t get to make decisions for me!”

“Get to? Have to! And I am, fuckin’ watch me!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Kat lets out a creepy shrill laugh, probably because she’s pretty out of breath herself by now too. “And what gives you that right exactly?”

“The fact I care about you, genius! The fact you're a disaster and, unfortunately, I've become weirdly invested in your continued existence. Let’s go,” I grab her hand, still holding the whiskey in my other, and when I look at her face, she frowns and rolls her eyes, but allows me to lead her to the bar counter to get a tall glass of water. “Please don’t take any more shots,” I turn back to her after talking to the bartender, entirely ready to fight her again if I have to.

“Fine,” she puts her elbows on the counter and slumps a little as she rests her chin and cheeks in her hands, in the prettiest depiction of defeat I’ve ever seen, and I can’t help but laugh a little.

* * *

“I’m never drinking again,” I whine from the couch and as luck would have it, Mark walks into the apartment just in time to witness it.

I can see about three different emotions and thoughts go through his head before he settles on arguably the least mean thing he could say, all things considered: “But you’re funny when you’re wasted.”

He goes for the kitchen cupboard to get a box of cereal and I hear myself groan. “Why are you so chipper?”

“Because I didn’t drink my weight in tequila. And then my weight in whiskey on top of that.”

Gwen side-eyes him while flipping her omelette at the same time; an impressive skill, actually. “Should we add your name to the grocery budget?”

“I bought this milk,” he tells her, grabbing a carton from the fridge.

“And? I bought the cereal,” she says.

“I brought her home,” he points a thumb at me. “I think that’s more precious than a few crumbs of your cereal, Gwen.”

“Fair,” she laughs.

“Wait… You took me home?” I’m just now realizing I don’t remember getting back here at all… I just assumed my own roommates would have gotten me back.

“Of course I took you home. Relax, Novak,” Mark laughs after a pause, grabbing a spoon. “I’m sure the day will come when I’m gonna get sloppy drunk and you’ll have to take me home.”

“By the time we came back, you were on the couch, drooling all over him,” Gwen cackles, pointing a spatula at me.

“Drooling?” I repeat faintly.

“Sleeping.”

“Don’t worry,” Mark looks at me gleefully. “My shirt wasn’t that clean anyway.”

“You don’t remember much, do you?” Gwen eyes me between getting all her breakfast components on her plate. I groan again in response and slump deeper into the couch.

“Well. Just so you know,” the grin on Mark’s face is absurdly smug. “You did tell me I have a nice neck.”

“I did not…”

“You did too,” he counters cheerfully.

“Why would I tell you you have a nice neck?”

“Because you’re perceptive?”

Gwen snorts and goes to eat at the table but Mark comes over to the couch, landing on the armrest beside me.

“You also tried to give a guy outside the venue your cigarette because you said he looked emotionally fragile,” he tells me.

“That does sound like something I would do…”

“Also,” Mark starts again and I already know I will regret hearing whatever he says next. “You told me I need to smile less.” He pauses and I am sure it’s very deliberate. “Because it’s distracting. Your words, not mine.”

“Did I actually say that?” I ask Gwen and she shrugs.

“Probably.”

I sink back into the couch. “Why did you let me talk that much?”

“I didn’t,” Mark says. “You were unstoppable.”

“You got very expressive with your opinions the drunker you got.”

“At one point,” Mark slips down from the armrest to sit right next to me. “I asked what was so distracting about it…”

“Please tell me I didn't answer.”

“Oh, you answered.”

Another groan.

“You thought about it for a really long time too.”

“That's never a good sign.”

“You said the issue is that it always looks real,” he tells me and then just looks at me, that unbearable smirk playing on his lips, echoing in his laughter lines, in the depths of his eyes… Drunk me is a traitor, apparently.

“That's actually kind of nice,” Gwen says.

Eva’s bedroom door creaks open, thank god, and she emerges looking deeply unconvinced by consciousness, hair still messy from sleep. “Textbook definition of a complete lack of a distracting smile,” Mark motions at her.

"Why are you here?" She asks on her way toward the coffee maker, without even glancing at him.

"Good morning to you too."

"Answer the question."

Mark points vaguely toward the door. "I'm waiting for Steve."

Eva pauses halfway through reaching for a mug, then shrugs, then proceeds. In the meantime, I push myself off the couch in search of food but find that the fridge contains very little of value, considering the current state of my stomach. The one thing that calls to me is a giant bunch of dill. I grab a few sprigs and start eating them on my way back to the couch. Mark watches me for a second. Then another.

“You know,” he says eventually, “every day I learn something new about you.”

“Mm.” I mostly ignore him, pulling another piece free and grazing on it. After a moment I hand Mark the stems. “Can you throw these away?”

“Sure.” He takes them and proceeds to eat them instead. Now I stare.

“You're so odd,” I tell him.

Mark finishes chewing. “You're the one having a bouquet of dill for breakfast.”

“The stems are the bad part!”

“According to whom?”

“Society.”

“Society's weak.”

The apartment door opens.

"Morning everyone." Steve walks in carrying a paper bag and immediately points at Mark.

"There you are."

"There you are. We’re educating Novak about the consequences of tequila."

"Ooh, fun."

“Not fun,” I scowl at Steve as he goes to grab himself a cup of coffee.

“She doesn’t remember much,” Gwen says and Eva perks up too. I know they love me but sometimes it’s really hard to remember that when I’m looking at these evil smiles.

“So we’re filling her in,” Mark says.

“Ah well,” Steve drops onto the couch next to me, “you said something fascinating to me last night.”

I immediately narrow my eyes. “No.”

“Yes. You spent five minutes trying to convince me that Stone and I are the same person.”

Eva immediately starts laughing into her coffee. “That does sound like her.”

“Thank you, Eva.”

“You're welcome.”

“You also claimed Stone is just me after somebody shook me really hard.” Steve grins. “Which is honestly kind of flattering.”

“Weirdly flattering seems to have been the theme of the night,” Gwen cackles.

Just then, Lizzy emerges, still sleepy, hair escaping from whatever hairstyle she'd attempted before bed. “Why is everyone laughing?”

“Kat's public humiliation,” Eva explains.

“Oh,” Lizzy says. “Carry on.”

“Et tu, Brute?”

“Sorry...” She goes into the bathroom.

Steve and Mark end up lingering longer than either of them probably intended. Whatever errand they were supposedly meeting for clearly isn't urgent enough to prevent them from sitting around the apartment eating other people's food.

"We've got twenty minutes," Steve says eventually, checking his watch before dropping back onto the couch.

"Twenty-three."

"Oh, sorry."

"Thank you."

One of them flicks the TV on, the volume low enough to blend into the general apartment noise; Gwen wanders over a few minutes later with a bottle of nail polish and claims the armchair beside the couch; Eva and Lizzy are in the kitchen making breakfast. The smell of coffee, toast, and something involving eggs drifts through the apartment. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Jerry shows up and immediately inserts himself into whatever Lizzy is doing.

Steve and Mark, still somehow choosing to sit on either side of me, start talking about recording schedules, mixes, songs, things I only half follow.

"...the bridge still feels too crowded," Mark says.

"Yeah. Because you keep adding more stuff to it."

"So… Scratch whatever we did to it yesterday and just make it fuzzier instead?"

"You’re reading my mind."

I only catch fragments after that. Something about vocal takes, something about arrangements, I’m pretty sure I even hear the word ‘harmonies’ at one point which is intriguing and should be investigated had I not flooded my brain with hard booze last night.

Then a thought surfaces through the haze. "I was listening to your EP the other day…” The conversation stops. Steve looks over immediately.

“Oh?” Mark perks up, smiling already, and throws his arm across the back of the couch behind me.

“I was just thinking, I really like Need."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think that's my favorite track off the EP. It is a quintessential Mudhoney song, really."

A grin spreads across Steve's face. "That's all Mark. He wrote the whole thing."

I look at Mark; he shrugs. “I did.”

"It's very good."

"Thank you."

Steve nods. "I also love that song." Mark groans quietly for some reason; Steve continues: "It's just simple folk chords."

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Steve immediately starts laughing. "Hey, it’s not my fault you wrote a folk song, man."

"It is not folk."

"It's folk-adjacent."

"It's not adjacent to folk."

"It's standing near folk."

"It's nowhere near folk."

Steve is nothing short of gleeful now. "I swear to God, if somebody played that song on an acoustic guitar around a campfire–"

Mark throws a couch cushion at him, nearly hitting me on the side of the head, and the cushion misses its target completely anyway.

"Violence. That's how you know I'm right."

"That's how you know you need to shut up."

I laugh despite the headache. Across the room, Jerry looks up from whatever conversation he's having with Lizzy. "What are we fighting about?"

"Folk music," I tell him.

Jerry considers this. "Good. Normal topic."

"Boring topic,” Gwen chimes in while inspecting the freshly painted nails on her right foot. “Kat, do you remember that guy at the bar last night?"

"I think you and I both know the answer to this question," I offer Gwen a feeble smile.

"The one who asked for your number?"

"Oh. Him… Actually yeah, vaguely…" Oh god, what else did I do?!

"He was cute."

"Was he?"

"He absolutely was."

"What I do remember is the twenty minutes of him explaining motorcycles to me… He had pictures on him..."

Steve barks out a laugh.

“You really didn’t think he was cute?” Gwen pushes and I shoot her a mildly confused frown. "Right. Let's ask somebody objective. Mark?"

"Gwen?"

"Was he attractive?"

"Who?"

"The guy."

"The what guy?"

"From the bar. The guy Kat rejected."

My hungover brain can’t really process the staring contest I’m witnessing happening between Mark and Gwen so I file it away for later.

"I don't know," Mark says after a moment.

"You don't know?"

"I wasn't really looking at him."

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't care what he looked like?"

"Convenient answer," Gwen says.

"Accurate answer."

"Fine. What about her?" After Gwen throws the question out into the room, it takes me a very long few seconds before I realise she’s pointing her the brush of her nail polish at me while looking at Mark.

“Oh, we’re doing this at this hour of the day?” Eva mumbles through a yawn while pouring herself another cup of coffee.

“You ever consider working for the CIA?” Steve inquires.

"Come on, it’s just a simple question," Gwen smirks at him. “I mean, would you say Kat is cute?”

“Of course I would,” Steve answers immediately, mirroring her expression, then leans forward to look at his friend sitting on the other side of me. “Wouldn’t you, Mark?”

“What is happening here…” I feebly offer my rhetorical question to the room.

“Psychological warfare, apparently,” Eva comes to sit on the couch as well.

"Answer the question, Mark."

“You’re not as effective without a natural disaster and candlelight,” he tells Gwen and I chuckle, then wince because the headache reminds me of itself with a few painful thumps. "But yes,” Mark starts again suddenly, looking at me with the same endlessly pleased expression he’s had all morning. “Statistically, yes."

Gwen stares at him. “Statistically?? What does that even mean? That’s insane.”

“That’s your version of flirting, huh?” Steve barks a laugh.

“What kind of a brain comes up with that answer?” Eva looks visibly worried by that wording.

Statistically, yes? Did he actually mean it? Did he mean the opposite of that? This feels like another piece of evidence in the ‘Mark is unpredictable and not emotionally legible’ folder.

“No, no, this is perfect.” Gwen is enjoying this so much she's vibrating.

There’s a jarring, perfectly-timed bell sound on TV, which makes us all look over, then some daytime host smiles from the screen. “In your opinion,” he asks his guest, “what's the height of stupidity?”

I slowly turn my head toward Mark and squint. “How tall are you?”

Steve, Gwen, and Eva all snort and cackle. “Wow,” Mark says, smirking at me. “How dare you.”

“Come on, Mark,” Steve says standing up. “We gotta go.”

A few more jokes later the apartment becomes significantly quieter and I sink even deeper into the couch that’s got a lot more space now. For a moment only the sounds of Jerry and Lizzy cleaning up after breakfast are audible and even though I’m looking at the TV, I am sure Gwen and Eva are either looking at me or at each other.

“Don’t.” I say.

“It’s just nice that he’s starting to admit things openly,” Eva tries to sound normal, casual.

“That man is so into you, Kat,” Gwen takes a totally different approach, her weirdly placed joy about this completely unmasked.

“I’m gonna go see if I can throw up,” I say as I peel myself off the couch and head for the bathroom. Although I’m sure it’s just that stupid giddy, fluttery feeling I’ve been having in my stomach regardless of things I consumed lately.

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