“Since you’ve stolen my girlfriend, I’ve come to make you both dinner,” he announces. I feel unreasonably disappointed that he didn’t come just for me. I’m sort of your wife! We had a child together for God’s sake.

“Great song.” He steps around me and kisses Della.

“Yeaaah.”

I put Carrie on mute, but Kit keeps singing it from the kitchen. Even when he thinks no one is looking, he does the closed eye, finger pointy thing. It has deep potential to be adorable, but he’s not my type. And God, stop stealing shit from Mariah.

He doesn’t ask me where anything is, or for help—not that I would have given it to him anyway. He bangs around in the kitchen while Della and I watch reruns of Teen Mom, until he announces it’s time for dinner.

“What did you make?” I ask, sitting at my table and feeling strangely like a guest.

“Ropa Vieja.”

I scrunch my nose. “Old clothes?” My Spanish is limited to four years of high school, so I could be wrong.

“Yes. Delicious.”

Della doesn’t question Kit’s dirty laundry, so I don’t either. Turns out it’s extra fucking good. I want to take a picture for my MEM folder and call it: I’ll Eat His Old Pants, but that would risk questions and judgment. They both might get the wrong idea. Kit does cleanup and dishes, and shoos me out of the kitchen when I try to help.

“He’s perfect,” Della announces. “Let’s stay up all night and play games.” Forty minutes and four beers later, she passes out on my sofa. Kit and I are playing Mancala, but he really sucks.

“It’s your strategy,” I tell him. “You have none.”

“Wanna go for a walk?” Kit asks. We both look at Della who won’t be waking up any time soon.

“Dells,” I say, shaking her shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk.”

She moans into the sofa cushion and slaps me away.

I shrug. “She hates the heat anyway,” I tell him. “It frizzes her blowout.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kit says, smiling. “She’s my girlfriend.”

I feel my face flush and hurry to the door ahead of him. Of course. Of course.

I don’t have a blowout; I just have a messy bun. Kit pats the top of it when we step out into the thick air.

“It’s like a hair hive,” he says. “Small creatures could live in there.”

“I had a snail as a pet once,” I say. “Its name was SnailTail.”

“Your weirdness never ceases to amaze me,” Kit says.

“I was taking art classes,” I blurt.

Kit looks at me funny, his head cocked to the side. “Was?”

“I stopped going because it was affecting my relationship. Neil made me feel like I was cheating on him when he found out.”

“Ah, well, good ol’ Neil was probably feeling a little guilty about his own extracurricular activities and looking for something to blame.”

“I wasn’t very good,” I tell him.

He shrugs. “But you are very good at passion. And if you have enough passion, you can almost learn to do anything well.”

I stare at him.

“How come Justin Bieber never gets any better at being a thug?”

We both laugh.

“Maybe I’ll try something new. Hey! How’s your book coming along? Do you have more to send me?”

I haven’t thought about Kit’s book since the night I had the fight with Neil about missing his work dinner. I can’t believe I forgot about it.

“I feel good when I’m writing. It seems to be all coming together.”

He glows a little when he talks about it. I wish I had something to make me glow like that. We walk past the lake, which isn’t really a lake. There is a jaunty fountain in the middle, spraying water into the still air. The air is so warm I want it to blow my way.

“Can I ask you something?” I say.

“You just did.”

I pull a face.

“Are you in love?”

Kit stops walking, and I panic. I’ve gone too far, asked something too personal. I pull on my earlobe and stare at him until he starts to laugh.

“Calm down, leave your ear alone.”

I drop my hand to my side. So awkward.

“I was engaged before Della,” he says.

My head jerks up. I’m surprised. I feel like that’s something she would have told me.

“She doesn’t know,” he says.

“Oh.”

“We just decided early on not to talk about our past relationships. Anyway, since we aren’t dating, I can tell you.”

I’d rather he not. We’ve been married.

“You can’t tell. This is in confidence.”

“She’s my best friend. Do you really think I’m not going to tell her?”

“Actually, yes. If you tell me you won’t, I’ll believe you.”

He’s right. I thrive on owning people’s secrets. Makes me feel superior to know I have them, even if no one else knows.

“Whatever,” I say. “I make no promises.”

We come to a junction in the path, and Kit chooses left. I always go right. It feels weird that he didn’t ask me which way to go, or that he just chose so decisively. Neil would have fumbled over that one.

“She was my high school sweetheart. We were beautifully cliché. Even down to the part where she cheated on me with one of my friends.”