He was stretched across the couch in gray joggers and a faded Northwestern sweatshirt he had not earned, one ankle over the other, remote in hand, sports highlights flashing across the television. An empty energy drink can sat on the coffee table beside a plate he had somehow managed to leave there instead of walking it the additional twelve feet to the sink.
When she walked in, he turned his head just enough to register her shape.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “Smells good.”
He said it the way some men said grace—out of habit, without reverence.
Carissa didn’t answer right away. She set the pot, salted the water, opened the refrigerator, and started moving with the precision of a woman who knew that if she stopped even for a moment, fatigue would crawl up her spine and pin her to the kitchen floor.
Damen wandered in only after the pasta was plated.
He leaned against the counter while she set two bowls down at the table, and there was something too casual in his face, a looseness around his mouth she recognized from depositions and bad clients. It was the expression people wore when they had already decided what was fair and were simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.