The seventh night was the first time Paige knocked, which was strange because for six nights straight she had left her bedroom door open like it was a question she refused to ask out loud.
I was standing at my kitchen counter at 11:08 p.m., eating cereal from a mug because I was 25, single, and apparently committed to making every woman who ever loved me feel relieved she had moved on.
Then I heard two soft taps on my bedroom doorframe.
Not the front door. Not her door. Mine.
I turned around with a spoon in my mouth and found my new roommate standing in the hallway wearing my faded navy button-down shirt.
Only my shirt.
It hung halfway down her thighs, the sleeves rolled to her elbows, her dark hair loose over one shoulder.
She looked nervous, bold, and far too beautiful for a Tuesday night in an apartment that smelled faintly of microwave popcorn and wood glue.
I took the spoon out of my mouth.
Paige Sullivan lifted one eyebrow.
“Before you panic, I’m not here to seduce you.”
“That’s exactly what someone would say if they were here to seduce me.”
A smile tugged at her mouth, but it didn’t last.
“Owen.”
My name sounded different when she said it like that. Less like a label, more like a hand on my chest.
“I need to ask you something,” she said.
And just like that, every open door from the past six nights rearranged itself in my memory.
My name is Owen Mercer.
I’m 25, and I restore old furniture for a living in a rented garage behind a hardware store in Portland, Maine. Tables with water rings, chairs with broken spindles, dressers people give up on too soon.
I like damaged things.
I guess people are harder.
Before Paige moved in, my life was quiet in the way a waiting room is quiet. Clean, functional, no one staying long enough to leave a dent.
