I get no writing done during our stint in Keuka Lake. Roz successfully distracts me the entire time, and so I find myself reading every book I bring with me—Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen; Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun (even though it's not even Christmas); People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (Roz's fault); and Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert. I start rereading Late to the Party for the ride back and have just over a chapter left by the time we get home.

So. That's the bulk of my reading done for the year, clearly.

By the time Roz drops me off at my place, I feel like I'm hungover. It's the surprisingly exhausting aftereffects of drifting in some sort of workless void for four days. I feel so ... lazy, in a way. Like, did I read four books in four days? Yeah. Was that "work"? Absolutely not.

"Are you high?" Nigel asks as I move my spoon around my bowl of Cap'n Crunch.

I look back up at him with sunken eyes and a slight frown.

"So you're high," he says.

Slowly, without making a sound, I shake my head, looking back down at my cereal.

He shakes his head back in response, dismissively. "Don't even know why I bother asking."

"Because," Daniel says from the kitchen sink, where he's nearly done finally washing his dishes, "Marcie is our friend and our roommate, and we love her?"

"Nope," Nigel says, staring right at me. "That can't be it. Oh, maybe it's the cereal for dinner."

I've only just taken a bite when he speaks, and I try to muster up enough energy to glare at him. "Shut up," I tell him through a mouth full of cereal.

"It's, like, eleven p.m.," he says. His accent is more grating than usual—sometimes, I wish he came with a return label so we could ship him back to Manchester. "What kind of grown up eats cereal for dinner?"

I set my spoon up and stare up at him, lifting my brow, as if in challenge. "What kind of 'grown up' calls other 'grown ups' 'grown ups'?"

He scowls, because he's Big and Bad and British. "Who asked, yank?"

Daniel sighs and turns the faucet back on. "One day, I'll live in a mansion, and neither of you will be invited."

When Nigel opens his mouth to say something, Daniel adds, "And I will relish the silence." He pauses. The faucet turns off, and he sighs. "Fuck. I've become my mother."

"There's nothing wrong with cereal for dinner," I tell Nigel. "It's convenient."

"Do you know how much sugar you're eating right now? Right before bed?"

"No, but I'm sure you're about to tell me."

He does some sort of weird groan-sigh-growl thing, tossing his hands up in the air like a three-year-old who's given up on learning the alphabet. "I don't know why I even bother. I'm going to bed."

"Aw, we wore him out. Good night, Mumsy."

He trudges out of the living room and down the hall, shutting the bathroom door shut behind him. Seconds in, and Rossini's Largo al factotum builds, until it's so loud through the walls that I can barely hear myself think. I've heard it enough times that I know it's specifically the Michael Spyres version. And, honestly, I resent Nigel for that. Deeply. Although not as much as I resent him for his newest hobby, which is attempting to sing with the opera he plays nonstop.

"He's so weird," Daniel says, removing his elbow-length yellow rubber gloves. "A pedantic little weirdo."

"Agreed." And I take another oversized bite of overly-sugary cereal.

He sighs, walking over and plopping next to me on the couch. "But he's our pedantic little weirdo."

"Agreed."

"So...." He looks over at me, heaving one last sigh, and sets his gloves down on the edge of the sink with a wet fwap. "How was the lake? Did you get to finish that book stuff you wanted to get done?"

I quickly swallow a bite of Cap'n Crunch that's definitely more soggy than crunchy and shake my head. "No, it was mostly reading and relaxing. Also checking out random antique stores around the lake."

"Well that's fun. Bring back anything haunted I need to be terrified about?"

"Luckily, no—the box of miscellaneous severed doll heads won't be arriving for another week or so."

"I don't think I can make it that long."

"That's what I told the postal service workers." I draw my legs up in front of me, hugging my knees to my chest. "How was your weekend?"

"Oh, you know. Boring." Daniel smiles slightly. "Mainly coffee shop coworker drama. You know how it is."

I nod slowly, even though I haven't had coworker drama in a while. Book community drama is different—hearing about once-mythical names that are now just a few degrees of separation from you yourself, being racist or homophobic or generally problematic, or (my favorite) a mix, like those white authors who pretend to be different races or who make fake Goodreads accounts to review bomb their friends. It's already weird to think about—without comparing it to the old "who closed last night" dramas from my time in food service.

I'm about to say something when the front door shuts—loud enough to be jarring, but not quite loud enough to be considered a proper slam—and in walks Kirby, wearing a beanie and crewneck combo that seem like they'd be too hot for the summer, and that also give me twee-era war flashbacks.

We make split-second eye contact, before I turn back to my cereal and focus on the sugary mush swimming in my milk, and Kirby shucks off his shoes and speedwalks straight out of the living room—down the hallway, past the bathroom right on Nigel's highest Fiiiigaro, and into his and Daniel's bedroom.

Daniel watches him go with sad eyes. As soon as the bedroom door is shut, he asks, "Do you think you guys will ever go back to the way things used to be?"

I follow his gaze down the hallway. "I...." It's hard to say. I mean, yeah, Kirby and I can hold a conversation together (albeit barely, it feels like nowadays), but we haven't been close since the whole "Gina was cheating on me and you knew" thing. My throat is hoarse when I go on: "We'll be fine."

Propping his chin up on the table, Daniel frowns. "You said you'd be fine months ago."

"Yeah?" My heartbeat is hard, but silent; there's no pounding in my ears, but there's a harsh, consistent thumping in my throat, in my wrists, behind my ribs. "I mean, yeah. I thought we would be. I just.... Yeah." I don't know what else to say. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, again," Daniel says, reaching out and poking my lemon yellow cereal bowl. "If I'd known, I would have told you. I promise."

"I believe you." And I do. It's crazy to think that I'm closer with Daniel than I am Kirby. Kirby, the person I've known since the beginning of high school. The person I first came out to. The person who let me help them narrow down new name options. One of my only friends from back home, and one of my only friends here.

It just feels like, after years of knowing each other, we don't really know each other at all.

"He really thought it would make you feel worse if—" Daniel starts, but I cut him off.

"It's fine. I'm fine." I chug the rest of my cereal, mush and all, and stand up before he can even react. I all but sprint to the kitchen and place the bowl in the sink. "I'll wash that in the morning."

"Sure, um, okay," he says. I can't bring myself to stay any longer—I speed walk down the hallway to my room and shut the door firmly behind me.

It's all I can do not to scream out of exasperation.

I flop on my bed, face first, and hug my pillow to my face. Why can't me and Kirby just be "not good"? We don't have to rekindle our friendship, or whatever it is Daniel trying to accomplish. You don't have to be friends with your roommates. Like, I'm not friends with Nigel, and I'm still pretty sure I at least like Kirby more than I do him, so ... really, if you think about it like that, he's winning.

I don't hate Kirby.

I just have nothing to say to Kirby.

I'm laying on my side, my body sprawled overtop my duvet—still my old one from college—and glance down at the foot of my bed.

My books from the lake getaway lie scattered across my mattress. Just past them, wedged against the back wall with little room between the window and the edge of my bed, is the newest piece of furniture in a largely second-hand room: the IKEA cube shelf.

It's a light oak stain, and it's already crammed full of books. It was my treat to myself when I signed on with Cassidy—and honestly, it's been worth every penny.

Turns out, if your boss is a famous author, and you have a deal with one of the biggest publishing imprints in the world, you come into a lot of free books. The shelf itself is eight cubes in total, four laid over four, and most of the cubes have neat little rows of books, with the refuse titles shoved atop them unceremoniously, jammed in wherever they might fit.

The top has become reserved for the more sentimental titles—ones gifted to me by authors or friends, and my favorite books. Also included are each of Roz's titles, two teetering stacks with eleven books each, one with books whose covers are old and tattered and taped back together, and the other being pristine signed first editions. Like, is she my girlfriend? Yes. Am I still in love with her books? Also yes.

Over the past year or so, I've noticed a change in my readings of Roz's books. They no longer feel like these inhumanely perfect works of art, with an individual voice and distinctive taste each. No, now, they all read like Roz. Each of them feel as if I'm hearing them in her voice, as if they're a story she's telling me personally. There's less ambiguity in her writing; the air of mysteriousness has dissipated. They feel more direct now. I know where she was going with something, I know what she meant, and I know how and why she thought each carefully-laid sentence would best convey that to the reader.

She's brilliant. My girlfriend is brilliant.

I reach for my bedside table—an unintentional donation from the previous tenant, Mallory—and pick up the second-from-the-top book from the wobbly stack precariously piled there. I keep starting and stopping Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Boreum, but it's wonderful and calm and precisely the kind of vibe I usually enjoy.

I'm trying to get lost in Minjun lamenting his mother's button-up metaphor, but it's a little hard when I keep getting distracted by the thought of all I have to do tomorrow. Get up early and ride with Roz to the first day of New York location filming—most of the interior shots were filmed in Georgia for tax reasons or something. Now, Roz will be able to join Mauro on-set for the rest of filming.

I also need to respond to Cassidy's text about finding a time to discuss my second book. I have absolutely no idea what I could write about. The only books in my head right now are The Monster Down the Lane and my romance I drafted last fall, which put me on this rom-com kick that I haven't been able to quit. My brain is full of rom-coms—but, unless I can bring more of a serious, "lit ficky" perspective to it, I don't think I'd be able to sell it.

I can't forget to reach out to Daisy, either. She promised she'd help me get a TikTok account set up, something that makes me feel ancient and haggard and useless, because what kind of twenty-something-year-old can't do social media?

"It's easy," she'd promised, just downstairs in the Brew. "Once you figure out what people like to see. You just want engagement."

"Engagement sounds terrifying," I told her. "I, like, would really rather not be perceived."

"You're lit fic, sweetie," she'd said. "Don't worry. You can get away with doing less."

Whatever the hell that means.

After another ten or so minutes trying (and failing) to make progress in The Hyunam-dong Bookshop—a very personal failing, I'd say; I miss being able to devour character-driven fiction, before my brain turned to mush—I'm about to give up, when my phone rings.

I don't have to see the caller ID to know that it's Roz. It's nearly midnight, after all—who else would call me?

I bookmark my book and answer the call. Roz's sweet chuckle is immediate, and I sigh patiently.

"Yes?" I ask. "Can I help you?"

"Hi," she says. "I miss you."

"That sounds like a pretty good reason to call me off the clock." I roll over, back onto my side, and tuck my pillow beneath my head. This. This is the perfect way to lie in bed. "I miss you too."

"Wow. Flirt." There's a shuffling in the background, and I hear her shut what's likely her bedroom door behind her. "Also, I'm going to pick you up around ten-ish for the movie tomorrow, if you still want to be on set with me."

"Where else would I be?" It's not the first time Roz has made it clear that I don't have to come. Which is all well and good—until I think about how her ex is the lead role in the movie. Ottilie Le Blanc, one of the biggest actresses of the past decade.

"I just thought you might want to focus on book two stuff, that's all."

I frown. "I'll be there."

"Okay," she says, "perfect. Then I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yep." I'm glad she's not here—the frown persists, despite my best efforts.

"I love you," she says, and it feels somewhat like a peace offering. A miniscule one for sure, but a peace offering nevertheless.

The tension in my shoulders dissipates. The frown fades away. "I love you too."

We each hang up, and I set my phone on top of my copy of The Hyunam-dong Bookshop. My appetite for reading is definitely gone now. Might as well just go to sleep.

Long day tomorrow.