Page 28 of Indigo Sky

But one thing I’d always give him was, he did the job right. Anything he set out to do, he did it, and he did it well. It was just unfortunate that some of that shit was a little on the questionable side of morality.

***

“You should get your own place,” Emily said one night.

She was perched at the edge of my bed, braiding her long blonde hair. She always kept it in a braid, unless we were showering or fucking. Sometimes, she would wear it in two braids, like Pippi Longstocking, but it was always,alwaysbraided.

“Why? You don’t like it here?” I asked, propping myself up on a pile of pillows.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Youdo?”

I laughed a bit uncomfortably. “I mean, it’s where I live, so …”

She tipped her head with a disbelieving look, like she couldn’t fathom how it was possible I could be serious, and looked back to the task of weaving her hair like she was freakin’ Rapunzel.

“I don’t know how you’ve never noticed this, but it smellsawfulin here, and—"

“Well, I mean, two men live here, so …”

“I don’t mean, like, you’re incapable of buying an air freshener or something. I mean, it smellsfoul. Like, absolutely disgusting. And it’s notyou,” she pressed. “You smell fine, your room smells fine, but the second I walk into the living room, all Ismell is … I don’t even know what it is. Weed and cigarettes and body odor and … I don’t know.”

I crinkled my nose. “What? Seriously?”

“You’re used to it, I guess. But it’s awful.”

Is she for real?I turned to look up at the ceiling.

Emily and I had been dating for only four months or so. It wasn’t a long time, but I hadn’t known her to blatantlylieabout anything. And when I really thought about it, she had only been to my place a handful of times, whereas I was frequently at hers, even though she shared her apartment with her sister and her sister’s fiancé. It was a similar size to mine with more people, yet we were always there. Was this why? My place with Nate stunk?

“I guess I could clean more—"

“Revan, it’s notyou.” She turned to look at me again, her eyes insistent. “You’re fine.”

“You’re saying the problem is Nate? But he’s hardly ever here.”

Nate was almost always out. Hooking up with women. Doing this and that. Working little odd jobs to fund his cigarette, weed, and booze habits. We worked together, went to my parents’ place for dinner on the weekend, and shared the occasional weeknight meal, but apart from that, we had become ships in the night. And it wasn’t a bad thing. I was free to have a relationship without him getting in the way of it, and he didn’t get worked up about whatever the fuck I was doing. Honestly, it had taken this shift in our lives to help me realize that we’dbecome so codependent on each other that we weren’t allowing ourselves to live separate lives, and when I thought about it like that, I’d realized how fucking pathetic life had gotten in the first place. Sure, I guessed it had started as a necessity, but it was unnecessary for it to have lasted as long as it did.

“Yeah, and thank God for that,” Emily muttered sardonically.

“What does that mean?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.” She turned and leaned over, giving me a chaste kiss on the cheek. “I’m running out to the kitchen and grabbing some water. You want anything?”

“You want me to get it?”

She shook her head and smiled. “No, it’s okay. You want some water too?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, returning the smile even if it did come out a little forced.

She left the room, leaving the door ajar, and I looked at the ceiling once again.

Twenty-eight years old. I was twenty-eightand Emily was my first girlfriend. She had taken my virginity two months ago, and truth be told, my life hadn’t changed as much as I’d expected it would. But the sex was okay, and at least I thought we were both happy. So, maybe she was right. Maybe it was time I got my own place, or maybe what she meant was, we should get a place together. Were we ready for that? We had only been together for a few months, but that didn’t matter, did it? I was twenty-eight; she was twenty-four. People our ages were thinking about settling down, getting married, having kids …

Fuck, does she want to get married?

Am I ready to get married? Do Iwantto get married? Yeah, sure, I guess I do, but … do I want to marryher?

My poor mind was dizzying itself with a barrage of questions, and my heart was racing toward panic when Emily reappeared in my doorway. Except she wasn’t carrying glasses of water and she was no longer smiling.

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