She looked at him with the expression he was coming to recognize as her version of finding sothing genuinely funny but deciding not to fully show it.
"No," she said. "They’re really not."
He set his phone on the nightstand and looked at her properly. "So... how are you doing?"
She blinked. Like the question surprised her.
"What?"
"How are you doing," he said again. "Right now... this morning."
She seed to consider whether this was a trick question, decided it wasn’t, and then sat with it honestly.
"I don’t know yet," she said. "Ask again in an hour."
"I might not see you in an hour," Mike said. "You’ll be back downstairs running the building."
"Exactly as it should be," she said, but the edge wasn’t in it.
"You’re allowed to not know," Mike said. "You don’t have to have an answer by six-thirty."
She looked at him sideways. "You’re doing it again."
"What?"
"Making it simple."
"Is it not simple?" Mike said.
"No," she said. "It’s very complicated."
"Tell which part."
She opened her mouth. Then closed it.
Then she said, "All of it," expressing a raw honesty that erges when people stop rehearsing their responses and simply speak.
"Okay," Mike said. "That’s fair."
She sat with her knees drawn up and her back resting against the headboard beside him, a posture that suggested she wasn’t in any rush to go anywhere. Outside, the city was beginning its five AM transition.
Inside, only the sounds of the building settling could be heard.
"What were you looking at?" she asked. "On your phone... when I woke up."
"Finances," Mike said, which was not entirely a lie.
"At five in the morning...?"
"I wake up early," he said. "Things need to be done."
"You’re very strange," she said, but she said it the way people say things they find interesting rather than things they find concerning.
"I’ve been told that," Mike said.
"By who?"
"Most people eventually," he said. "Usually ans I’m paying attention to things they didn’t think anyone would notice."
She was quiet for a mont. "Like glass that isn’t cracked."
"Like glass that isn’t cracked," he agreed.
She turned her head slightly and looked at him, and there was sothing in her gaze that contrasted with the careful, controlled version of herself that she had presented downstairs. It was softer around the edges, less guarded.
"I thought about it," she said. "Before I ca up. For about twenty minutes after you texted."
"I know," Mike said.
"Twenty minutes of sitting at my desk telling myself all the reasons it was a bad idea."
"And then you ca up anyway."
"And then I ca up anyway," she said. "Which tells you sothing about the quality of my reasoning."
"Or the quality of your instincts," Mike said.
She looked at him. Sothing in the look shifted. "You’re very good at that."
"At what?"
"Taking a thing I say about myself that’s slightly critical," she said, "and turning it around so it sounds like a complint instead."
"I’m not turning it around," Mike said. "I’m just looking at it from the right angle."
"And what’s the right angle?"
"The one where you’re a person who knows what she wants and went and got it," Mike said. "Rather than the one where you made a mistake."
She held his gaze for a mont before looking away. This ti, it was not the sa deflective glance she had offered the night before; it felt quieter.
"I should be annoyed at how easy you make that sound," she said.
"Are you?"
"No," she said. "That’s the annoying part."
Mike smiled at that—not a calculated smile, but one that erged when sothing was genuinely funny.
She saw it, and her expression transford in a way that was difficult to define—sothing caught between surprise and pleasure, as if she hadn’t anticipated it and now felt uncertain about how to respond.
"You should do that more," she said.
"Do what?"
"Smile like that. Like you an it."
"I usually an it," Mike said.
"That one was different," she said. "That one was real."
"They’re all real," Mike said.
"Not all of them," she said, and the way she said it made it clear she had been watching him long enough to know the difference.
He looked at her. "Fair," he said.
She reached over silently and tucked the edge of the sheet further over his side, a small, entirely unnecessary gesture. Then she seed to realize what she had done and went slightly still.
"Sorry," she said.
"For what?" Mike said.
"That was—" She paused. "I don’t know what that was."
"You were cold," Mike said. "You pulled the sheet over."
"I pulled it over your side," she said.
"I know," Mike said. "I noticed."
She looked at him with the expression of soone who had been caught doing sothing revealing and was trying to decide whether to acknowledge it. She decided to acknowledge it.
"I do things like that," she said. "Small things. Without thinking."
"I know," Mike said. "You made sandwiches on Monday."
She blinked. "That was for both of you. For you and Haruka."
"You made sandwiches at seven-thirty in the morning," Mike said, "wrapped them separately, researched the transit routes, and ca out to the lobby before we left."
He held her gaze. "That wasn’t building managent."
She was quiet.
"That was you," he said. "Just you. Doing sothing because you wanted to."
She looked at her hands for a mont. "Gerald would say I’m too much sotis," she said. "I tend to take care of things that don’t actually need attention."
"Gerald is wrong," Mike said, simply.
She looked up at that. "You don’t know him."
"I know what you just told about him," Mike said. "And I know that making sandwiches for soone on their first day is not too much. It’s the exact right amount."
She was quiet again for a longer mont.
"You know," she said, "I ca up here last night expecting to feel terrible about it today."
"And?" Mike said.
"I don’t," she said. "I should probably examine that."
"Or you could just let it be what it is," Mike said.
"Which is what, according to you?"
"A good night," Mike said. "A good morning. Nothing that needs a verdict."
She looked at him for a mont, and then, slowly, she leaned sideways until her head was resting on his shoulder, which was a gesture so unguarded and simple that it landed with more weight than most of the things that had happened the night before.
He didn’t move or comnt; he simply let the mont linger, aware that Petricia was already his due to the intensity of their desire.
"You’re warm," she said.
"I know," Mike said.
She laughed quietly, a short and subdued response. "That was supposed to be neutral information."
"I know," he said again.
She lifted her head and looked at him. He looked back.
She leaned in and kissed him gently, unhurried, the kind of kiss without an agenda. Then she pressed her hand flat against his chest for a mont, resting it there as if checking that sothing was still where she had left it.
Then she pulled back.
"I have to go," she said.
"I know," Mike said.
"Stop saying that."
"I know," he said, and she laughed again, properly this ti.
She got up and gathered her belongings, moving through the apartnt with the careful quiet of soone aware of the space around them. She dressed in a leisurely manner, as if she had co to terms with her decision.
At the door she turned around.
"Mike."
"Yeah."
She regarded him for a mont, her expression a blend of several emotions—the morning version of her face, the underlying vulnerability beneath her landlady composure, and sothing else, simpler and less guarded than either.
"Don’t be a stranger," she said. "More than you already are."
"I’m right upstairs," Mike said.
"You know what I an."
"I do," he said. "I won’t be."
She held his gaze for another second before walking back across the room. Leaning down, she pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to his mouth, her hand briefly resting on the side of his jaw. Straightening up, she looked at him directly.
"Don’t hesitate if you want to talk," she said. "Or anything else."
"Sa to you," Mike said. "If you want to have sex again... you know who to text or call."
"You cheeky..." Petricia gives a small punch to his chest. "But still... I’ll reconsider that again."
She gave a small wave over her shoulder without turning around, and then she was gone.
The door clicked shut.
The apartnt was quiet in that distinct way it becos when soone has just departed.
Mike sat with it for a mont.
Then he picked up his phone.
[DESIRE ENERGY: 0 POINTS REMAINING]
[NOTE: ADDITIONAL ENERGY AVAILABLE THROUGH SUBSEQUENT ENCOUNTERS WITH BONDED TARGETS OR NEW MAXIMUM BONDS.]
[SHAPESHIFT IS IN YOUR INVENTORY. TRY NOT TO DO ANYTHING INADVISABLE WITH IT IMDIATELY.]
"Define inadvisable," Mike said.
[YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING AND THE ANSWER IS: WAIT UNTIL YOU NEED IT PROPERLY.]
He looked at the door she had just walked through.
’I’ve finally made Petricia Schneider beco truly mine,’ he thought. ’And she’s a more interesting person than her building thinks she is.’
[THERE ARE STILL A LOT MORE WON WAITING FOR YOU OUT THERE, SO YOU BETTER START MORE GRINDING.]
"Hell yeah... next is either going to be Madison or Haruka, but for now Madison is the easiest one through blackmail." Mike laughed. "And for Haruka... I’ll make her start hearing all those noises."
He put the phone down and got up to shower.
Outside, Erosyne was getting louder by degrees.
It was going to be a good Wednesday.
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