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pushing a bright red mower, but it was Andrew’s turn to stare. Rather than wearing ratty shorts and a pair of old flip-flops, this guy looked just aboutready to conduct an outdoor business meeting. Drew couldn’t imagine how hot he must be in a pair of long slacks and dressy loafers that glinted in the sun.
    The neighbor looked back over, and Drew instinctively ducked down.
    His stomach flipped and soured. A second later he was shoving the driver’s door open and bolting for the house.
    After puking up a stream of still-cold pink, he unsteadily made his way back to the front yard. Sick or not, there was furniture to unload and boxes to unpack. He didn’t feel like spending another night on a pile of his own clothes. Stepping back into the heat, he froze where he stood. Half of his furniture was on the sidewalk, as if on some sort of weird display. Mickey wrestled with the headboard.
    “Hey,” he said, spotting his housemate on the lawn, “figured you needed a hand.”
    Drew’s first instinct was to smile, but that nagging kernel of wariness immediately followed. Andrew believed in first impressions, considered those first few moments as a window to who a person really was. Mick’s most recent first impression hadn’t been a great one; tired, sloppy, unaccommodating, he seemed like the last person to jump off the couch and lend a hand. But there he was, unloading Drew’s stuff like he’d been paid to do it when he hadn’t even been asked to help. Peering against the glare of the sun, Drew watched Mick work for a moment longer before dragging his feet across the lawn.
    There was something about Mickey that felt off—a weird vibe he couldn’t shake. Drew used to know a kid back in high school—Jeff Belkin. Jeff had been a real asshole, the kind of guy who could turn a simple conversation into the most unpleasant event of the day. Jeff had a coke problem. Nobody knew it at first, but after a while, it was obvious. Every time Jeff took a bump in the bathroom between class he’d turn into a fly at a picnic, constantly buzzing around people, wanting to talk, wanting to help:
what can I do, what can I do?
Maybe Mickey had a drug problem, coke or speed or something. Maybe that was where the vibe was coming from—chemicals that were slowly frying Mick’s brain.
    Pausing beside the back tire, he raised an eyebrow at Mick.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    “What?” Mickey froze. He was a bundle of stops and starts, just like that Jeff guy.
    Andrew motioned to Mick’s cheek, a diagonal slash cross-sectioning his face.
    “Oh.” Mickey blinked, then furrowed his eyebrows. “Nothing,” he said. “Just an accident.”
    “Some accident,” Drew replied. “Looks like Norman Bates went after you in the shower.”
    “What?” Mickey shook his head. “Bates?”
    “Norman Bates, man. From
Psycho
.”
    Mickey stared at the house for a long while, then forced a smile.
    “Oh yeah,” he said. “Nah, it was just an accident. I haven’t even seen
Psycho
, dude. I don’t watch that old stuff.”
    “Are you serious?”
    Mickey lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug. Drew wasn’t sure why he was surprised. It was hard to watch the classics while picking off zombies in a first-person shooter.
    “Come on,” Mick urged. “It’s hot. It’ll go faster with two.”
    Back and forth they went, from the truck to Andrew’s room. Mickey even helped move some of the cardboard boxes so they could squeeze the bookcase inside. On their last pass for the mattress, Drew noticed that their slacks-wearing neighbor had been joined by a woman who looked just as proper as he did. She stood in front of a rosebush, trimming stems with a fancy-looking pair of shears, wearing bright red heels in the grass. He couldn’t make out her face beneath the floppy brim of her gardening hat.
    It was disorienting to see them gardening in such proper attire. But Andrew was struck with a desire, a
need
to walk upto that picket fence and introduce