I didn't hear my cell phone shuttering in my pocketbook on the floor. The light coming through the curtains was pale blue. I had been in a semi-conscious state between sleep for what could have been  hours and it was the closest thing that I'd had to rest in a week. My body felt, surprisingly, well.
   
    I leaned over the edge of the bed, fumbling for my phone to get a look at the time.
    7 A.M. Five missed calls. Three of the calls were from Holly beginning at 6:30 A.M. The other two were from Noah,
    There wasn't a single voicemail but every call had a corresponding text message. All five messages read the same.
    "Where are you?"
    I quietly dialed Noah's number.
    "Moriarty," Noah said, sternly.
    "Hi."
    "Audrey, I can barely hear you. Why are you whispering?"
    "No reason."
    Noah cleared his throat, "How was the big party last night?"
    "It was okay."
    "Only okay?"
    "Sure, why?"
    "Because I was supposed to meet you at your apartment at quarter after six this morning for a magazine interview that we have at eight. Funny thing is, you aren't at your apartment."
    There was a ball of guilt that climbed up my throat and choked me. I gagged and groaned.
    "I'm sorry, Noah. I wasn't thinking."
    "Save it. I don't want to hear it. I need you to meet me at the studio before eight and you'll need pretty damn good luck getting anywhere in this city at this hour. Call Holly on your way over. She's worried sick."
    Noah hung up on me. He wasn't interested in getting a response.
    My phone rang before I had a chance to put it down.
    "Holly, don't yell," I softly pleaded.
    "Thank God you're alive! Where are you?! I'm going out of my mind," She scolded, "The last time that I saw you, Adam put you in a car to go home and then I'm told that you didn't make it home?! I thought you'd been killed!"
    "Be calm. I'm on my way to the interview."
    "From where?"
    "A friend's house."
    "The same friend as yesterday?"
    "Yes."
    "Is Christian your friend?" She was very concerned.
    "Why does it matter?"
    "I'm begging you not to do this. I can give you every single reason why this shouldn't be happening. Do you know anything? Has he told you anything? Are you still at his house? I'm coming over."
     I tried to plead with her but I was talking to dead air.
     I felt Christian's hand lightly touch the small of my back. Sleepily. Clumsily. I looked over my shoulder at him.
     He smiled a sleep drunk smile.
     He noticed that I wasn't smiling and his face fell, "What's wrong?"
    "I'm late for work."
    "I'll take you," He sat up, taking his glasses from the night table. He squinted at his watch.
    "Holly's on her way to pick me up."
    Christian barely had time to grimace before the doorbell repeatedly rang. I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my purse.
    "Christian, I--," I wasn't sure of the words that I was trying to say. The sound of the doorbell became deafening, "I'm sorry."
    I left the room without looking at his expression. I knew that I felt bad but I wasn't sure of what I was apologizing to him for so I could only imagine what he thought that I was apologizing for.
    I rushed down the stairs past Mr. Mittens who was trying to make his way up them.
    I smiled at Holly in an attempt to break the ice. She didn't return the gesture. Instead she acted like the enraged mother of a teenage daughter who she had caught in bed with the neighbor's son. She put an arm around me and led me away from the house, then she opened the car door and didn't shut it until I was safely buckled inside.
    We didn't exchange a single word on the drive to the studio. Noah was pacing in the parking lot when we pulled up.
    "You look like you're going to a motherfucking prom," Noah said as I got out of the car. He turned to Holly, "Where did you find her?"
    "Do you know Christian Weller?" Holly replied.
    Noah pressed his hand to his forehead in despair, "Jesus Christ."
    "I've got a cardigan in the back of the car. She can put it on over the dress and everything will be fine," Holly told him.
    She was right. Once I had buttoned up the sweater and was sitting at the interview, no one was the wiser and everything was fine.

***
   
    In my lifetime, there had never before been any concern over my actions so I found the way that Holly was treating me to be extremely unsettling. I had spent the first eighteen years of my life struggling to be treated like an adult and it took less than two weeks in Los Angeles at almost twenty-eight years old to revert me back to adolescence.
    I didn't even feel like myself. I had separated into two different people. There was Audrey Moriarty from Seattle and there was Audrey Moriarty in Los Angeles. In Seattle, I was personable and hard-working.  The Los Angeles version of myse-- uh -- Audrey felt more like a glamorously depressed fake.
    The day of the interview, I ignored my calls and worked as hard as Noah needed me to. That isn't completely true. I checked my phone every spare moment that I had to see if Christian had called but as the day progressed the only calls that I was getting were from Holly so, eventually, I turned my phone off. It was the truth that I worked as hard as Noah needed me to, though.
    I went to my trailer for a break only to find Holly sitting in an armchair anxiously awaiting my arrival. She wasn't reading or watching television. She was staring at the door waiting for me to walk through it.
    "Please don't say anything. It's already been a long day," I tugged at my hair as I sat beside her.
    "Christian will never be in love with you."
    I pressed my fingertips to my hairline.
    "You've lost your mind," I was dumbfounded by the way that she was speaking to me. It was incredulous. She ignored my outburst.
    "He has no romantic heart."
    I covered my ears, "Stop."
    "I know that you don't want to hear this..."
    "No because I don't understand why you are telling me this."
    "Because you and Christian..."
    "Have known each other for two days."
    "Then why is this upsetting to you?"
    "I'm being reprimanded like a child and if I am reprimanded like a child then I am going to act like a reprimanded child."
    Holly reached out for me and I flinched. She sighed.
    "You're being dramatic," She scolded.
    "You're being dramatic," I countered.
    "You called me crazy!" She yelled, "You wouldn't even hear me out!"
    "What is there to hear out?! You couldn't even call Christian my friend," I admitted, "I don't know him."
    "Then why are you defending him?"
    "I'm not defending him."
    "Then why won't you listen to what I have to say?"
    "Because it doesn't matter," I argued.
    "Sure, you've known him for two days but you've also spent two of those nights with him."
    I didn't have an answer for her so I shrugged.
    "Mmmm," Holly hummed disapprovingly, "I bet nothing happened, too, huh?"
    "Nothing happened," I assured her.
    "You know why?" She leaned forward, "Because nothing ever happens with Christian."
    "Then you should be thankful that I'm safe."
    Holly rolled her eyes, "What has he told you?"
    "Nothing. He doesn't owe me explanations for anything."
    Although, honestly, she had peaked my curiosity. I couldn't understand how such a seemingly sweet, normal person as Christian could cause such a strong protest from Holly.
    "How noble of you," She quipped sarcastically, "You like him."
    "I've known him two days!"
    "That doesn't matter,"  She shook her head in disappointment, "You're easy to read, Audrey."
    "I'm beginning to wonder how well you know me," I told her.
    "I know you well enough to know that you like to take care of people and that you'd like to save a lonely boy who you think is being picked on for no reason but trust me-- Christian doesn't need saving."
    The odd thing was that she was right. I didn't know Christian but I wanted him to adore me. It wasn't logical but I couldn't shake the wanting. The fact that he wasn't making a move on me, and that Holly knew it, only drew more interest.
    "God, is Los Angeles some weird mutant place where everything moves faster than normal?"
    "The burnout is also bigger here than in other places. Audrey," She tried to level with me, "I shouldn't have to tell you this stuff. If you really do want to be friends with Christian, he should tell you."
    "Then why should I stay away from him?"
    "Because I don't think that you're interested in just being friends with Christian."
    I sighed, "Okay. Start from the beginning."

***

    Christian met Adam while they were attending UCLA. Christian had just moved to California from Iowa where he was born and raised. His growing up and family life had been stable. His parents were still together and he had an older brother called Peter.
    Christian had no ambitions for the entertainment industry when he moved to California. He went to school for environmental chemistry.
    As far as hobbies were concerned, Christian was in love with music. Every night that he wasn't studying was spent in some sticky-floored club watching some band that he knew that he would never really like in the first place. That's actually how he had met Adam. They saw each other at all of the same shows and gravitated towards each other. They became fast friends and inseparable.
    So, it was Adam who threw Christian a surprise party in one of the seedy bars that they frequented for his 25th birthday and this was the first time that Christian laid eyes on Jolene.
    Jolene was nineteen and had snuck into the bar with a group of her friends. She was petite with 1920s-style bobbed blonde hair. Christian was so taken by her that he left his own birthday party before most of the guests had finished their first drink. He went home with her that night and, as the story goes, never left.
    Christian had worked at the radio station with Adam. He was a DJ in the all-too-painful 2-5 a.m. slot, but someone liked the sound of his voice and he started getting work reading for audio books, narrating documentaries and voice acting. After that, someone decided that they liked the way that he looked and he started getting jobs hosting travel specials and bit parts in television shows. Within two years of dating Jolene, he had managed to save up enough money to buy a house in the same neighborhood where Adam and Holly lived--- and an engagement ring. Jolene agreed to marry him, she quit her job to practice becoming more of a housewife-type and to focus her energy on her photography.
    Christian and Jolene had their share of arguments but everything seemed to be going well. Due to scheduling, they couldn't seem to agree on a wedding date so the subject was pushed aside for three years. It didn't seem like there was need for a rush.
    One day, five years into the relationship, Christian came home to find Jolene packing her things into cardboard boxes. He asked her what was happening. She told him that she was leaving. He begged her to stay. She told him that it was too late and that she had met someone else. He asked her how-- why? She told him that she didn't love him-- that she had been too young when they met-- and maybe that she wasn't sure that she ever had.
    Christian became a sobbing, vomiting mess. He couldn't bear to go home so he slept on Adam and Holly's couch (despite them having plenty of guest rooms) for two months until Holly told him that he couldn't go on like that and made him go to his own house.
    After a few months, Christian quit talking about Jolene or the break up. He got a cat and spent more nights at his house. Holly thought that he might be on the upswing and, if anything, he was just lonely and slightly emotionally stunted. She fixed Christian up with her friend, Natalie, and they seemed to go crazy for each other. They went to dinners and movies and out with Adam and Holly. They spent every spare moment together for about a month, then, as things started to get more serious, Christian quit calling and quit going to Natalie's apartment. He would make dates then not show up (which, "wasn't very much like him," Holly added). Then, he went to Natalie's apartment in the middle of the night, looking terrible and apologizing to her, stating that they couldn't see each other any more.
    Holly brushed this aside as a one off and attempted to set him up again. And again. And again. In total, she set him up at least six times in seven years, the last time being just a few months before she told me this story. The results were always the same and the stories that the girls told were almost identical.
    Christian would seem shy but very interested in the women. When the relationship began to get physical, Christian wouldn't let so much as one item of clothing drop. A few of the women claimed that they would start to unbutton their blouses or skirts only to have Christian button them back up. Somehow this left the women feeling more vulnerable than if he would've had sex with them and never called again. He was a different kind of man, he was willing to have a somewhat emotional relationship but he couldn't bond physically. He couldn't give himself up.
    I figured that Christian let me unzip my dress the night before because he was calling my bluff, he knew that I wouldn't persist.
    Holly said something else that disturbed me. Christian asked every one of the women the same question, that he, himself, wouldn't answer.
   
    "Do you love me?"


***

    I was disgusted and felt incredibly stupid.
    "I could kill Adam for introducing you to Christian. I mean, what's he supposed to do, though? Never introduce Christian to people? He's not a mutant. Just stunted," She momentarily appraised me, "You aren't even his type."
    "Excuse me? His...type?"
    "Oh Audrey, you know what I mean. You're everyone's type. You're gorgeous. It's just-- you know, like, he only dates certain girls... girls like Jolene."
    I was the opposite of Jolene. Tall (five feet, nine inches), slim (but healthy looking), with dark hair past my shoulders. I also believed that the only thing more frightening than death was a day off. I wasn't capable of being a housewife or normal. It wasn't in my blood or in my bones.
    "If Jolene was the girl who broke his heart than why would you only set him up with girls like her?!"
    "Because I knew what he liked!" She paused, "It doesn't even fucking matter, Audrey. That's not the point. I'm worried--that's the point. You have the opportunity to make something of yourself here..."
    "Was I NOTHING before I moved here?"
     "You weren't nothing. I just don't want you running with a crowd that will scare you back to Washington and the desk of some nothing record label. You should never again have to know the taste of ramen."

***
    The day became more of a wash as it went on. Holly left the set shortly after she had finished venting but I didn't feel resolve. I apologized for calling her crazy. We hugged each other with hard hearts. It began to pour rain without warning and showed no sign of letting up. Noah shut down production due to weather and told everyone that he would call them when we were back in business.    
    Oh, how I loved the world of independent film-making with it's unpredictability and the way that something as trivial as rain could kill a movie!
    California wasn't built for rain. The freeways held the water instead of draining it, everyone drove too fast or too slow for it and the natives scattered whenever it was falling.
    Noah wasn't doing a very good job of dealing with it as he drove me home. He was an aggressively slow driver that hit his horn anytime someone drove past him too quickly. He also yelled, cursed and flashed his lights at people. I would've taught him some breathing exercises if I had known any. Unfortunately, new age healing wasn't my racket and the only thing that I could think to tell him was something that a friend with a new age mom had once told me.
    "Did you know that it's possible to breathe yourself to death?"
    "Jesus, Moriarty," He scowled at the windshield, "Some of the things that you say."
    "Why did you choose me?" I asked him. I was met with a long pause, then a clearing of the throat.
    "You've only been here two weeks. Are you already having a nervous breakdown?" Noah tried not to sound concerned but I could tell that he was.
    "Already? Is it a rite of passage? I'm not even sure of who I am."
    Noah groaned, "I hope to God that you never get famous, kid. I don't think that you could handle it."
    "Let's never get famous together." 
    "Speak for yourself. I want to make a lot of money and spend a lot of money and win some big fucking awards. Of course, it would be in my best interest if you did get famous."
    "Of course."
    "Don't take yourself so seriously. I chose you because I liked your film. I couldn't imagine anyone else being able to do this. You helped me to write it. It's as much your movie as it is mine," Noah's words hit me hard. I thanked him. "I'm nervous, too, you know. I've never been given so much money to make a film. It's terrifying."
    He stopped the car in front of my apartment.
    "This is the end of the line," He told me. I hugged my purse to my chest.
    "What a predictable thing to say," I teased him, "I'd expect better from you."
    "It's all cliche, sweetheart. It's all been done before."
    I got out of the car and closed the door. Noah rolled down the window to speak to me.
    "Get some sleep and drink some water, Audrey. You'll feel better."
    I held my palm up towards the sky and smiled, "It's falling out of thin air."
    "Don't drink it. This city is polluted."
    "Sky above and ground below."
    Noah thought about my words and repeated them as if in agreement.
    "Sky above and ground below," He nodded his satisfaction.
    Noah had driven away by the time I realized that I didn't have my keys.

***

    I sat on the stoop of my apartment with my head in my hands. I had emptied out the contents of my pocketbook onto the doormat. Cell phone with a dead battery, wallet, lipstick and dozens upon dozens of business cards and scraps of paper, but no car keys--no house keys. Once I knew that they weren't on my person; I knew where my keys were and I didn't want to go anywhere near them. I wanted to figure out a way around it but there wasn't one. I attempted breathing myself to death and after five minutes of failure, I rose to my feet, walked three blocks to the 7-11, took money out of the ATM and got a taxi to Christian's house.
    It cost me sixty dollars for the ride to torture myself.
    Christian opened the door and smirked boyishly. He pushed his hair away from his eyes.
    "Hello, Audrey," He greeted, sweetly.
    "You're a dick," I spewed, vehemently.
    He took a step backward as though I had startled him.
    "Excuse me?" He asked to make sure that he heard me correctly.
    "Don't talk to me. I'm just here for my keys."
    Christian was puzzled. He shook his head.
    "I haven't seen your keys. I was just going to call you."
    "Why?"
    "To talk."
    "About what?"
    He shrugged, flustered.
    "Because I wanted to. To say hello. Nothing in particular."
    I fidgeted impatiently, "May I come in?"
    "By all means," He said it in a way that was just slightly condescending. He held the door open and waved me in with a grand gesture. I ignored him and climbed the stairs to the bedroom. I quickly scanned the room but didn't find them. I laid on my stomach on the floor, staring underneath the bed. My keys weren't under the bed but I rested there for a moment, feeling crushing defeat. I felt the warmth of a body beside mine, we weren't touching but I knew that he was there. I didn't want to turn my head to look at him. I heard jingling and saw my keys being slid across the carpet in front of me. Christian immediately retracted his arm, tucking it under his body.
    "Mr. Mittens found them. They were on the stairs," He spoke softly.
    "Thank you," I replied, it pained me to say so.
    He was quiet for a moment, then kind of cleared his throat before he spoke.
    "Soooo... you're mad at me?"
    "Hate you, is more like it."
    "Hmm... what took you so long?"
    I moaned and turned my face to look at him. I could feel the imprint of the carpet etched into my cheek.
    "I wanted to like you."
    He tucked in his lips, "You've been talking to Holly."
    "Yes. You weren't going to tell me."
    "What is there to tell, really? Depending on how things were going-- I guess I would have told you something. But when has there been time? And when is a good time? At introductions? And no, I probably wouldn't have told you the way that Holly did."
    "You would've let me like you, just like you let everyone like you and just like you let everyone convince themselves that there is something wrong with them based on your reaction to them and... you would have left."
    "You're accusing me of a lot of things. That's where you've got me wrong. I don't leave. I, maybe, break up non-existent relationships. That much is true. But I never set out to do that. I don't plan for it or anything."
    "What constitutes as a relationship to you?"
    "It isn't those girls."
    "Is it sex?" I asked.
    "No. Sex is easy. Anyone can have sex."
    "You don't."
    "I don't want to."
    "Ha. Every man wants to. It's biology."
    He picked at a piece of the carpet, "What do you want me to say?"
    "The truth."
    "No one wants the truth."
    "I do."
    "You're young, yet. You'll learn."
    "Are you going to tell me?" I questioned.
    "I loved someone and it's all that I have left of them."
    "The sex?"
    "The intimacy. Closeness."
    "You're torturing yourself."
    "In a way. It sounds crass but I'm actually scared of forgetting the way that she felt. I like knowing that I have that and that I can't confuse that with the way that anyone else feels."
    "Have you tried counseling?"
    He expelled a lungful of air into the carpet as if distressed.
    "No. I haven't tried counseling."
    "Maybe you should."
    He continued as though I hadn't made the recommendation, "Sometimes I like the idea of companionship-- even for a brief moment. Sometimes it's the clarity in knowing that the way that I've chosen to live is pathetic. Most times, it's just Holly's persistence. I don't plan on hurting anyone. I just don't plan on having a commitment like a relationship, either."
    "Ever?"
    He rolled over onto his back so that he was looking up at the ceiling.
    "I don't know. I wouldn't say that I'm happy but I'm okay with my life the way that it is."
    "How many times have you had this conversation?" I asked.
    "Never."
    "Why?"
    "I wasn't asked any questions."
    "That doesn't make sense. Someone must've asked."
    "That's the strange thing about women. They always want to feel like they are the first and that no one existed before them but when you tell them that, they won't believe you."
    "You're making fun of me."
    "I am. But I'm being honest. I haven't had this conversation before."
    "Aren't these obvious questions?"
    "To you, maybe."
    "What about the girls that you were dating?"
    "They had different priorities."
    "Like what?"
    Christian's expression grew very serious, "If I told you something-- would you believe me?"
    "I feel like we've had this conversation before-- but, yeah. Okay."
     I wasn't sure that I would.
    "Promise?"
    "Promise."
    "I don't think that I've ever instinctively felt about anyone the way that I feel about you, Audrey."
    "How do you feel about me?"
    "I'm not sure, yet."
    "What do you want me to be to you?"
    "What do you want to be to me?"He asked.
    "I don't know. I've known you, like, days. How am I the most useful to you?"
    "Useful?"
    "You know, where you still talk to me after a month?"
    "You aren't going to let this go."
    "I can't."
    "Can you just be here for now?"
    "What if I told you that I had to go?"
    "I would say that you say that an awful lot."
    "Would you let me leave?"
    "I can't hold you here against your will."
    "Would you--,"
    "Yes, Audrey, I would try to stop you from leaving," He answered, knowingly.
    "But why, if you didn't think that you could love me?"
    "When do you have to leave, really?" Christian questioned. I thought that he was avoiding my question.
    "Noah shut down production until the weather clears. He's supposed to call when I have to be back."
    "Will you stay until you get the call?"
    "What if the weather stays bad?"
    "Will you stay until you get the call?"
    "What if the weather doesn't clear for, like, a week?"
    "Will you stay until you get the call?"
    I nodded, hesitantly, "Yes. I'll stay."
   
***

    We spent the first six hours laying on the bedroom floor. Sometimes one of us would switch our position from laying on our stomach to laying on our back, to laying on our side to laying on our other side. We didn't reach out for each other or speak. Once in a while I would stare at him when he didn't know that I was. I was trying to memorize things about him. I wanted to be able to remember the exact length of his neck, the thickness of his glasses, the paleness of his skin. His complexion was fair as though he were still living in the Midwest, not like he had spent the past sixteen years in southern California. I liked the way that his hair swooped and he had to keep pushing it away from his eyes. He had on this tan cowboy cut shirt with snap buttons up the front, sleeves cuffed above the elbow and dark blue jeans. He was sort of average looking, no one could really gauge what type of person he was by just looking at him, but he was attractive. The more that I looked at him, the more attractive I found him to be.
    He looked like a lot of men from back home. The kind of men that I would meet at a party and share a bottle of Night Train with from a paper sack. The kind of men that I would spend all summer in a frenzied passion with but once that first fall rain hit, they weren't anywhere to be found.
    Perhaps Holly was right about Christian because she believed his behavior to be unique to him. Perhaps I was right in assuming that all men that looked like Christian behaved the same.
    "It's like I met you at Sunset Tavern on a Friday night," I mused, breaking the silence.
    He furrowed his brow. Not knowing Seattle he had no point of reference. Not knowing Los Angeles, I had none to give him.
    He shook his head, "I'm afraid that I don't --"
    "Don't worry about it."

    The silence settled back in. He reached up onto the night table for the remote control and turned on the television. He did not change the channel-- he only disturbed the quiet. Every time a commercial came on, the volume seemed to raise as though they were yelling at the public to "Buy something!" I tried to focus on the noise. I stared at Christian, the reflection of the screen blurred onto his glasses, until my eyes grew heavy and eventually shut when I was unaware of it.

***

    I dreamt of Eugene.
    We were standing on the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. Our grandfather was with us and we were watching the trees and land pass by. A gust of wind picked up and blew my grandfather's favorite baseball cap into the Sound. Eugene said that he would go get it. He was gone for a long time and I became more and more angry with him the longer that he was gone. Eventually he came back, but he had scars and stitches all over his body. Chunks of him were missing. He told me that his body had been donated to science and that they took from him all that they needed. Our grandfather ignored Eugene completely, as though he couldn't see him, even though I kept trying to tell him that something was wrong. He wouldn't even accept the ball cap from Eugene's hands. Instead, my grandfather put his arm around my shoulders and told me,
    "It's okay. I can get a new hat."

***
   
    I thought about Eugene every second of every day since the moment that he shot himself. He was a layered thought, not at the forefront. It wasn't like I was only thinking about Eugene. I was also thinking about things like breakfast, somewhere between whether I was going to eat Lucky Charms or toast was Eugene. But it wasn't Eugene as a person or as my brother-- it was the loss of Eugene. It was Eugene's suicide.
    The thought wasn't something that made me sad or something that I thought about directly. It was just something that was there and I had adapted to it. It was a part of me that I didn't tell anyone about because I didn't believe there was a need to. People who knew me before Eugene died knew what had happened and moved on with their lives. The people who didn't know me before Eugene died didn't need to know that I had a brother at all. It was too awkward to explain and when people did learn about it, they felt sorry for me, which I couldn't understand. After a while, Eugene's suicide wasn't something that happened to me, it was just who I was. I was the last act that my brother committed in his life.
    Sometimes the dreams about him shook me up. It would be assumed that when a person's subconscious is constantly thinking about one thing, that one thing would come out in dreams. This wasn't true in my case. The longer that my brother had been dead, the less often that the dreams occurred. In the first year, I'd had several dreams about him. As the years went by the dreams became fewer and farther between. The dream that I had about Eugene while I was asleep on Christian's floor was the first dream that I could remember having about him in at least a year. No matter how terrible the dreams were, or disturbing the subject matter, there was no such thing as a bad dream about Eugene. I longed for those dreams because they were my only chance to see him. The only thing that scared me about those dreams was the possibility that I wouldn't have another one and that I would forget him.
   
    Christian gently shook me awake and Eugene was gone.

***

    I felt awkward being in Christian's house once I knew the bulk of the story about his relationship with Jolene. We spent three days anticipating Noah's call. I wore his old t-shirts and over-sized sweaters. We were living like two ghosts in the shell of his old love. Though her things were gone and there wasn't a sign of her having existed anywhere in sight, the house represented Christian's intentions and what he once was-- hopeful. Christian once was hopeful and he had lost that hope when he came home to find cardboard boxes. He wasn't lifeless but he was listless. I didn't think that I could fathom that kind of loss. I had never given myself up to someone-- not fully, anyhow. I guess that I hadn't really been offered to be taken, either.


***

    "You know that there are more records than Nuggets, right?" I teased. Christian frowned.
    "I know what I like," He argued.
    "You have got to like other things."
    "I don't."
    "Then why do you go to shows?"
    "I like the people and the energy that goes into it. I'm willing to take a chance that I might like something someday."
    "But you don't?"
    "I wouldn't say that I don't-- I just don't think twice about it."
    I looked at the records, trying to figure out what his method of organizing them was. It didn't seem like anything fancy, just alphabetical. I could feel him watching me as I studied the shelves.
    "It's a good thing that you don't have a girlfriend. You don't own a single lovemaking record."
    "I'm sure that there's something in there," He stepped up beside me. He pulled a few records out halfway, looked at the track listing then shoved them back into their spot.
    I laughed at him as I observed what he was pulling from the shelves.
    "You consider The Sonics 'Boom' to be a lovemaking record?"
    "Maybe, but I'm also proving a point. They aren't all garage records." He replied, defiantly. His face lit up as he pulled a record from the shelf, "A-ha! Here, 'Can't seem to make you mine', by the Seeds. That's a lovemaking record."
    "That's a lovemaking song," I corrected, "And it's only about two minutes long."
    "Two minutes and thirty-six seconds," Christian said, he pointed to the track, "See, it says so on the back cover."
    "Well, it's not like you could put it on repeat."
    "Would it take longer than two minutes and thirty-six seconds?" He joked with a lift of the shoulders. I refused to respond.
    "Do you want to listen to it?" He suggested.
    "Sure."
    Christian put the record on the turntable and walked back over to where I was standing.
    "Would you like to dance?" He asked.
    "With you?" I questioned without thinking.
    He looked around the room, "There isn't anyone else here. Well, there's the cat but he's got two left feet. Not that I'm much better."
    We awkwardly placed arms at waists and hands in hands. As I squirmed to find a proper position, Christian pulled me in. I rested my head against his shoulder with a sigh and he held our hands at his chest. I closed my eyes, imagining that this is what it would have felt like if we had met at a party in the 1960s. For as awkward as I was, Christian seemed to know what he was doing, as though he were teaching me. Maybe, in the 1960s, he would've been just a few years older than I was and I would've been his teenage girlfriend. He would've been my only experience, the only person that I had known in a physical sense.
    I wanted to hold him tighter but was terrified of doing so. I wasn't willing to put myself out there.
    The song ended and was followed by a long pause, then the song started over again. I looked up at him questioningly. He smirked, smugly.
    "My turntable has repeat tracking."

***

    The third time through the song, Christian brushed my bangs away from my face with his fingertips. The fourth time through the song, he pressed his cheek up against my forehead and held me with a more steady arm. His breathing slowed. The fifth time through the song he held my face in his hands. He kissed my right cheek and then my left cheek. Christian brought his face in close to mine but stopped short when my phone rang.
    The song didn't make it through a sixth time because Noah needed me back on set.
***

    Christian followed me around the house as I gathered up my things. Keys from underneath the bed, sweater from the back of a kitchen chair, shoes and pocketbook from the hallway.
    "I could take you to your apartment or the set," Christian offered. I shook my head as I slipped on my shoes. I had foreseen this being a problem and called Noah's girlfriend to pick me up. I swore her to secrecy before I gave her directions.
    "Sara's coming to get me. She'll be here in a minute."
    "Isn't it out of the way? It'll be easy for me to take you."
    "It's a bad idea."
    "Why?"
    "If Holly sees us..."
    "I don't care who sees us," Christian countered. He was slightly annoyed that I did care. I couldn't handle another talking to from Holly, or anyone else, about my work and who I fell asleep next to.
    I saw headlights outside.
    "There's my ride."
    "You're always leaving like this," He bemoaned.
    "Like what?'
    "You get a phone call and someone comes to take you away."