Dylan's apartment was finally starting to feel like home. He'd bought some throw blankets and pillows for his couches and some coasters for his coffee table. His old TV sat hooked up in his living room, and his DVDs, which Ellie had told him were "obsolete," were displayed in a case below it. Candles burned atop his kitchen counter, which he hoped would set the mood, because he expected Leah and Trigger over for dinner.

The two of them rang his doorbell around six-fifteen, just as expected. After running over, he opened it slowly and welcomed them with a smile.

"Hey, buddy," he told Trigger. "High five?" He gave Trigger his splayed hand, and Trigger actually moved in for the high five, smiling afterward. It gave Dylan a sense of accomplishment, because he wanted to get closer to Trigger, and it seemed like, after just a couple of encounters, Trigger might be warming up to him. Leah beamed at Dylan and he moved in for a hug, and the three of them walked inside of his apartment.

"It smells really good in here," Leah told him as he searched for Talia. The smell was a combination of his cooking and the woodsy-scented candle, and he agreed it smelled nice.

"It doesn't always smell this nice," he assured her, reflecting on his choice to make everything presentable for Leah. Why had he done that? To show her he was better than her? He didn't want her to think that, and he didn't want her to think he consistently kept up this image. "It doesn't always look this nice, either. I wanted to impress you, I guess."

Talia had probably fled the living room, so Dylan asked, "Hey Trigger, would you like to come to Talia's room?"

Trigger nodded, so he showed him to her room, where she laid on her stomach on her room's shag carpet, playing with Lincoln Logs. Immediately, she seemed to shrink away from them. The mere presence of Trigger induced an uncharacteristic shyness in her. He wondered why; normally, Talia was the opposite of shy.

"Why don't you two play together while dinner cooks?" he suggested, and Trigger got right to it, going into Talia's toy box. The box—an actual cardboard box, since Dylan still hadn't bought her a proper toy bucket—held her toy dragon, who Talia had named Luke, and Trigger took him out and pretend-flew him... right into Talia's log cabin.

The Lincoln Logs came apart, and Talia screamed, "Hey!"

Looking alarmed, Leah said, "Trigger!"

But Dylan intervened, saying, "I have a great idea, guys." He got down onto the carpet with them, and said, "Why don't we play a bowling game?" The two of them stopped to look at him, intrigued, so he dumped Talia's toys out of her cardboard box, started taking the box apart, and flattened it.

"Here's what's gonna happen, guys. You need to build a log cabin with the Lincoln Logs. Try to make it really strong, because after you build it, we're going to send a toy down the bowling alley," he gestured toward the flattened cardboard here, "and see how well the toy can knock over the log cabin with the toy. If the toy knocks it over all the way, it will get a really high score. If it knocks it over part-way, it will get a medium score. If it doesn't knock it over, it will get a low score. Sound like a good plan?"

"Yeah!" Trigger screamed. Talia looked like she felt unsure, but as soon as Trigger started building the new log cabin out of the remnants of her recently destroyed one, she joined in to help him, and he let her.

"Can I help?" Leah asked Talia, and Talia smiled and nodded, shyness completely eradicated. When Leah got down on the shag carpet, Talia even sat on her lap. Eventually, the first log cabin was complete, and Dylan said, "Okay, what toy should go down the bowling alley first?"

"Dragon!" said Trigger.

"Can I show you how to do it?" Dylan asked him. Trigger nodded, so Dylan showed him how to slide the dragon down the cardboard. Then, he let Trigger take the first turn, and Trigger sent it down the cardboard bowling alley, where it partially knocked over the log cabin. "That looks like a medium score!"

Leah and Trigger both screeched in excitement, and then the two of them immediately got back to work building log cabin number two. Talia continued to sit on Leah's lap, and Leah continued to help, and the scene tugged at Dylan's heartstrings, because maybe this was it, maybe Leah could fill in as Talia's mother. It was probably too soon in their relationship to be thinking these thoughts, but Dylan couldn't help it. His first nights in his new apartment had been a harsh reminder of how lonely he really was. His time with his dad and Ellie had been weird, but at least it had distracted him from his loneliness.

"I need to go check on the chicken," Dylan told Leah, trying not to get too ahead of himself.

Still smiling to himself, he went to the kitchen and opened up the oven, where the chicken was roasting. Using the baster, he squeezed its juices all over its exterior, and then he checked its temperature, finding it would be done soon. The green beans and the mashed potatoes cooked atop the stove, as shrieks of elation came from Talia's room.

When dinner was finished cooking, he set out four plates on the countertop and called everyone to take a seat on a barstool.

Though Trigger complained about his green beans and Talia spilled a glass of water, dinner tasted delicious and everyone finished off the chicken.

Leah offered to do the dishes, and as she did them, Dylan put on a movie for the kids in the living room. Talia asked him to put on The Wizard of Oz, and though they'd watched that movie at least twenty times recently, he obliged her. Then, he helped Leah dry the dishes. When everything was put away, he offered her a beer, and she accepted happily.

The two of them each drank two beers through the duration of The Wizard of Oz, and after the movie was finished, Trigger laid asleep on the couch, and Talia looked barely awake. Dylan took her to her bathroom and helped her brush her teeth, and then he helped her into her pajamas and tucked her into her bed.

Finally, it was just him and Leah.

"Well, I guess we should go," she told him.

"You could stay," he said.

"Are you inviting me?"

"I am."

She leaned in for a kiss, and the two of them made their way to his room, their lips continuously locked, which made for an amusing trip down his small hallway.

His new mattress welcomed them, and he laid Leah down and crawled on top of her, ready to make her feel wanted and alive.

Afterward, they stayed up until three o'clock, talking about their pasts. He told her about Katie, how quickly he'd fallen in love with her, how they'd gotten addicted to heroin together, how they'd gotten clean for Talia, and how Katie had left them when Talia was five months old. He told her his fear that Katie was dead. She told him more about her own family and about Larry, and then showed him the self-inflicted burn scars on her arm, her long-time method of coping with life. When they finally fell asleep, he felt closer to her than he'd felt to anyone in a long time.