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unanswered for a bit.
    Oh.
    Yeah.
    When u back?
    A few days. A tremor went through Norby’s hands. Sudden anger at the imposition, and the inquisition. It came on sideways, at odd angles, with no percolation.
    Can someone else let me in?
    No.
    Chill. Just asking.
    The world doesn’t turn on you and your fucking shirt.
    Whoa. What’s with u?
    “You goddamn well know what’s with me,” Norby said aloud. He bolted into a sitting position, turned off the TV, and jabbed his finger at the phone’s touch screen, tapping out a reply. The night of the breakup, he’d gone back to the house alone. Derek stayed in a room at the Hotel De Anza, having already packed a bag and cleared out before they met for dinner. That had been tough enough, but it was no match for the scattershot visits over the next week—sometimes when Norby was at work, sometimes when he was there—when Derek would swoop in and haul off some more belongings. Finally, Norby had set some boundaries: one more trip, get everything, leave the key, stay permanently gone. That had been eleven days earlier, and the agreement had held until tonight. The bile rose in Norby’s throat faster than he could swallow it back down.
    Nothing’s with me. You can get it when I’m back.
    K. Jeez.
    You’re so manipulative. Norby rapped it out before he had time to reconsider. If he could still wound Derek, that comment would get him. Their worst fights, and Derek’s most extended bouts of pouting, had come in the wake of Norby calling him on his fouls. Norby braced for the reply. If he drew blood, as he expected, he could count on Derek to overplay the offense.
    Whatever. U R mean. This is why I couldn’t love u. Norby stared at the screen, absorbing it even as his mind screamed at him to just let it roll off him. He blinked, then blinked again. How wonderful it would be if he just couldn’t feel anymore.
    He pressed the power button and turned off the phone.

PATRICIA
    She lay on her side in the darkened bedroom, feigning sleep after hearing Sam come in the front door. His unwinding brought forth the melody she knew well—the slap of his tossed keys on the kitchen counter, the concussive beat of his slipped-off boots hitting the floor beside the sliding-glass door, the insistent beep of the refrigerator as he pawed too long through the drawers looking for something to ease his sweet tooth, the padded footfalls through the living room as he headed toward her.
    She opened an eye and found the glowing display of the alarm clock: 9:21 p.m. A late arrival for Sam, even by eve-of-Jamboree standards. She knew better than to have expected him for dinner. Once the pies were out of the oven and cooled, she’d wrapped them in aluminum foil and set them high on her grandmother’s buffet in the dining room, well out of the reach of the grabby grandchildren she expected to see in about twenty hours. After that, she drove the twelve miles to Sidney and ate a double cheeseburger from Dairy Queen in the privacy of her car, euphoric at every bite. She knew what such a luxury demanded. She would be back in Sidney the next morning, in league with her CrossFit group, ready to keep that greasy delight off her thighs.
    A crack of light fell on her from the opening of the bathroom door as Sam brushed his teeth before bed. Praise be for that, she thought. He often didn’t take such care, and on those occasions when he went in for a good-night kiss, she would quietly endure the detritus of whatever he’d consumed for lunch at Pete’s.
    Lights out, she waited for his touch as he slid into his side of the bed. A serpentine arm slithered over her hips and across her belly, drawing her into him.
    “You awake?” he said.
    “Barely.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    She patted his arm. “It’s OK. How’d it go?”
    She closed her eyes and let him speak his piece. Conceit moved to the forefront on this particular occasion, where Grandview and Jamboree became the revolving planets and Sam became the sun.