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on the shower. He gathered Pam’s clothes, knocked on the bathroom door. A hand emerged to accept them with a thank-you.
    Laurel got up, stepping to the windows to peer at the empty street five stories down.
    “You dawdling?” Flynn asked. When she turned to try to come up with a pithy answer she found him smiling at her, thumbs tucked into his pockets.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “You probably got some questions. Run away if you want though.”
    She opened her mouth to speak just as Pam opened the bathroom door, flipping off the light and fan to emerge fully dressed. She looked different with her hair wet, bangs off her face, eyeliner and dark lipstick gone—vulnerable and heartbreakingly human. She turned to Laurel, her voice softer than it had been all evening.
    “Did you like it?”
    Laurel pursed her lips a moment and nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for inviting me.” She turned to Flynn and held his eyes to tell him the thanks were meant for both of them.
    “You need an escort to your car?” he asked Pam.
    “No, I’m just across the way.”
    “I’ll watch from the window,” he said. “Go on, it’s late.”
    She gave him a last look then turned to Laurel. “You need a ride anywhere?”
    “No, I live close,” she lied. “Thanks though.”
    “Take care,” Flynn said, and closed the door behind Pam. He braced a hand on the wood and leaned into it a moment as if he were thinking, then walked to the windows. He stared down into the street, raised a hand in a small wave and a car started up outside.
    He turned to approach Laurel, crossing his arms over his chest. “So.”
    “You’re bleeding,” she said, eyes on the thin stream of fresh blood coming from the gash on his lip.
    He wiped his mouth, smearing red. “You traumatized now or anything?”
    She ignored his patronizing tone. “Do you have rubbing alcohol?”
    He blinked at her a couple times then headed to the bathroom. He crouched at the cupboard below the sink, coming out with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Laurel slid past him and rooted through his medicine cabinet, finding antiseptic ointment and bandages. No cotton balls, but she popped the toilet paper roll off its spool and headed back into the main room. She heard Flynn follow as she walked to his bed and sat on the edge. He looked down at her, semi-silhouetted. She patted the mattress and he surprised her by sitting.
    Laurel angled his head and inspected the cut. He didn’t flinch as she brushed her fingertips over it.
    “You a nurse or something?”
    “No, I’m a waitress.”
    “Aren’t you too old to be a waitress?” he asked, the tease stinging a little.
    “I’m only twenty-nine.”
    “Yeah, but you can wait tables in Providence. Nobody moves to Boston to become a waitress. Where’d you drop out from?”
    “Nowhere. I graduated from Wentworth.” She wet a wad of toilet paper with the peroxide and pressed it to his lip. He didn’t bat an eye. “I just didn’t like my field so much once I got into it.”
    “Waste of thousands of dollars.”
    She frowned at him. “I had a scholarship, not that it’s your business. Is there a humongous chip on your shoulder I should be disinfecting?”
    “Sorry,” he said, not sounding it.
    “What do you care, anyway?”
    “I like to know who I’m playing with, and you seem like you might be sticking around.” He watched her smear her fingers with ointment before dabbing it on the cut.
    “Well, I’m a failed engineer who waits tables at a tourist trap in Quincy Market,” she said, addressing his lips.
    “And you don’t live around here, do you?”
    “No. I live in the North End.”
    “Roommates?”
    She nodded. “I’m pushing thirty and my career’s in the crapper and I wait tables and have two roommates. And my longest relationship lasted less than your current fuckbuddy arrangement. Happy?”
    Flynn laughed genuinely for the first time and it changed him. It deepened the lines beside his eyes and mouth, revealed his