Micah spent Alistair's last night in New York making the long trek north toward 97th and Park—outside of NYU's stomping grounds—to have a drink made too strong for him to have sex too quick (and loud?) for his tastes.

He stayed the night to avoid the inevitable departure of Alistair from Benny's flat. And how awkward it'd be if Benny made us hug goodbye... Micah would rather perish in the Hudson.

Staying away rewarded him with a morning blowjob, which was both welcome and a surprise. He hadn't brought his toothbrush, though, and out of embarrassment for his morning breath, he left while his hookup was brushing their teeth in the bathroom.

On the return journey home, Micah transported his brain to a world where he hadn't actually met Alistair at all. Perhaps if he went on deluding himself into believing Thursday night never happened, he'd be better off.

Lapse in judgement. Lapse in judgement.

And so, the week that followed commenced.

Micah attended Kennedy's (non-biological) relative's wedding in his Brunello Cucinelli suit and spent the majority of the night fading into the background with Kennedy. They watched, enrapt and embarrassed, as Kennedy's godfather tore up the dance floor.

Micah was, for good reason, intimidated by Cassian Presley. Kennedy's mother and only parent had passed away long before Micah met her, so he had only ever known Presley as her father. The man had a voracious appetite for fun and, for this reason, was rarely in the city. Presley was too busy vacationing across the globe to bother with staying in one place for long.

After the wedding, Presley was bound for Singapore before the popular vacationing season. The majority of his social circle lived there now and, try as he might, Kennedy refused to entertain moving there herself.

"You know, with the way he pesters me, I wouldn't be surprised if he already has a place there waiting for me. You know what the real estate there is like? Do you? Do you?"

"Insane?" Micah offered, unhelpfully.

"Fucking mental," she said. "I'd have better luck at Resorts World."

"Then why does your godfather have any luck? Since apparently he has two places over there."

"No clue. None at all! I'm exhausted." She finished her cocktail in one last gulp and declared their night was over.

And, seeing as Presley was bound for Singapore, Kennedy exercised her liberties with his spare key and housesitting privileges by driving them both there. It was after midnight and parking was scarce, but Kennedy was nothing if not a parallel parking princess.

They collapsed, exhausted, in the room Presley kept for her at his place. The condo was dark and quiet all except for the clattering of their shoes on the floor behind them before they each fell face-first onto her mattress. There, Micah struggled out of his suit, unsnapped the suspenders from his shoulders, and unbuttoned his shirt all while face-first on the comforter. He waited to dispense of his belt until he rolled onto his back and stared, vacantly, at Kennedy's ceiling.

His ears were still ringing from the party. The room grew very still.

Kennedy inhaled to speak.

"Have you..." she started, uncharacteristically slow. He tipped his head to look at her properly. It sounded serious. "Have you... slept with anyone. Since Benny's brother."

Micah tipped his head back with a scoff. Oh, that, he thought. He hadn't given Alistair much thought that week because every time he did, he forced himself to open Grindr. "Yes."

"Wait, seriously?"

Micah's brow furrowed. "Is it really that much of a surprise?"

She hesitated. And then, with a deliberately terse sigh, she said, "I don't know why I'm surprised. Your ability to just move on never ceases to amaze me."

"Yeah, well."

"Like, I haven't been straight since our threesome but even I look at Alistair's tits and go—" She gestured with her hands like her eyes were exploding out of her skull.

Micah immediately turned onto his side, rose up to his elbow, and stared down at her. "I call them 'tits' in my head, too," he whispered, flabbergasted.

"In your head?! Bitch, say it out loud!"

"Isn't that rude, do you think?"

"Sure, but the truth is usually rude. And he's so in-your-face about it. Like, sir, cover them up, please. This is a family restaurant and we're trying to eat."

Micah collapsed onto his face, smothering a laugh into the blankets. Kennedy burst into giggles, curling up beside him to wrestle him into a hug. They fell asleep after a long spell of slap-happy giggling over Alistair's tits.

The following morning was spent exploiting Presley's home gym and raiding the contents of his refrigerator where a note declared: "PLEASE EAT EVERYTHING." Micah would be an idiot to deny such a request, and so he made pancakes and brought them to bed where Kennedy was still waking up.

"Hey. Gotta get to work soon," he said.

She swore, rolling over to bury her face in the pillows. She hugged them, squeezed, and relaxed. "What time is it?"

"Almost noon."

It took a second for this news to hit her. She jackknifed up with a gasp, wide awake. "Shit. Shit. I have a date at one. Shit!"

"At one?" Micah said as Kennedy flew out of her bed and to her closet. She didn't keep her favorites at Presley's, but it would have to do. "Do you hate the girl or something?"

"No. But after Benny's whole episode last week I got nervous and now I'm on a lunch date kick," she said as she shimmied out of her dress. Micah shielded his innocent gay eyes as she wasn't wearing a bra. She stepped out of the pool of fabric and into a posh, navy skirt.

It took a second longer for Micah to piece it all together. "Is this about the sex-on-the-first-date thing?"

"Yes. I mean, think about it," she said, bra straps snapping into place. Micah dropped his hands to his hips then. "The chances of fucking after 5PM spike exponentially. If Benny had taken that girl on a lunch date and dropped her off by four, they wouldn't have fucked. Don't you think?"

"This is all a matter of self-control," Micah reasoned, though immediately felt the shot to his heart. He had lost self-control over Alistair just a week prior.

And he quite liked being in control of "his urges", lest they act without his approval.

"Exactly. People like me do not have self-control. Ergo: lunch dates. I'm tryna find a wife out here, man," she said. "I mean, not legally. My grandparents would disinherit me. But you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I got you. I'm just saying—"

"I hear you. I see you," she said, strolling up to him. She clasped him by the shoulders and shook him. "And I love you. But it's lunch dates from here on out. Mark my words!"

"Until when."

"What?"

"I mean, if you're looking for an illegal wife—Wait, there has to be a better name for that."

"Not... legally-recognized? Though 'illegal' sounds pretty metal, so we can go with that."

"If you're looking for an illegal wife," Micah went on, rolling his eyes. He wound his arms around hers to clasp her shoulders in return. "Then at some point you'll want to take her home after 5PM."

She blinked owlishly at him. "I haven't decided how many dates it takes."

"Kennedy, you're not built for celibacy."

"But it's like you said! It's all about self-control, and I'm controlling the environment that's best suited for controlling myself." She buttoned up her shirt, shook her hair out, and unwound herself from Micah's arms. "Maybe I should wear the granny panties..."

"The goal isn't to make you look and feel unfuckable."

"Touché..."

Micah joined her at the vanity as she cleaned her face of last night's makeup and did herself up all over again. By the time they left Presley's house, Kennedy was fully dolled up to an acceptably-fuckable extent. He left her at her car and waved like a grandparent at the stoop watching their grandkids go by. Kennedy stuck her middle finger up through the driver's window before peeling away.

With Presley's house up for grabs, Micah and Benny spent enough time there to be considered Kennedy's roommates. After all, movies were made all the more appealing by virtue of Presley's flatscreen television and surround sound speakers.

Considering the priceless and personal affects decorating the place, however, guests were not allowed—Micah and Benny being the exception, of course. This was one rule Kennedy was avid to keep.

And so, there were no parties, nor were there overnight guests no matter how desperately Micah and Benny pleaded. The very thought of utilizing Presley's hot tub in ways it shouldn't be used was beyond tempting.

"No," Kennedy would say, "You're both animals," she would add, "Why are you guys even still here?!" she would shriek, and so Micah and Benny relented.

Moping on the couch over a stolen bottle of champagne, Micah put his arms over the back cushions. Benny had his head in Micah's lap, dejected eyes on a paragraph of scientific malarky.

Benny slapped his book down, bemoaning, "What's so bad about bringing a girl over? I'll wash the sheets!"

Micah propped the book back up for him and said, "You have to finish this chapter before class. Unless you're too horny to study now?"

Benny grumbled, miserably, and admitted, "No, I guess not... But don't you think it's a shame? All this room! Does Presley even use the guest rooms?"

"Dude, you've been to his parties before."

Presley's parties were ragers and were often organized around guests visiting from out of town. One such party had been Micah's christening to Kennedy's world—a world of five-course meals and polo on the weekends. Micah couldn't count Presley's properties on one hand, much less two, and had been hopelessly dazzled (and made desperate) upon his first summer vacation to the Hamptons.

Truthfully, looking at Presley's fortune never failed to sting Micah with offense. It was no wonder Kennedy was so happy-go-lucky, party-every-weekend, shopping every night. Every now and then when he picked up packages from his mail lockbox and knew they were online purchases for Erika or Benny, Micah wanted to tear the cardboard to shreds.

It was prideful of him to know he truly had a button to fix everything and refused to push it. Kennedy's bare minimum of gifts was what Micah's pride could realistically settle for, not... his tuition, nor an apartment.

His rent would barely be a fifth of her monthly allowance from Presley.

Micah pushed the thought of Presley's five-thousand-dollar living room rug from his mind. In fact, he wouldn't even think about the thirty grand he was presently sitting on—the largest couch he'd ever seen in his entire life. Truly, he would remain content being Kennedy's little stray cat whom she could lure, now and again, into her childhood home with the promise of sweet treats and the best wine he'd ever have in his entire life.

He closed his eyes, tipped his face up to the ceiling, and sighed. This is the life, I guess.

But "the life" had to end eventually. During the week, classes were made painful by the long commute from the Upper West Side. Their lectures and labs didn't overlap well with Kennedy's fashion courses, so carpooling was a bust unless Micah and Benny wanted to sit on their asses for two hours before class.

When they returned to the flat, a note was waiting for them on the front door. Benny plucked it off.

"Redelivery?" he said, turning the paper over. He looked at Micah. "Did you order something that needs signing?"

"No. I don't order online, remember."

"What—! Oh yeah, that's right. I forget you ascribe to conspiracy theories."

"Only some of them," Micah insisted. He unlocked the door and there, in the kitchen, was Erika. "You know someone tried to delivery something, right?"

She looked up from the pan, startled. Eggs and spinach were sizzling in butter. "Yeah. They wouldn't let me sign for you."

Micah pointed to himself. She shook her head and pointed to Benny, who shut the door and had the audacity to look surprised.

"You totally ordered something," Micah accused.

"Uh, yeah, if I did it'd be with my butt. I did not order anything consciously."

"Well, whatever your butt ordered sounded like a big deal. He was asking lots of questions about the stairs and the back door," Erika said. She shoveled food into a container. "I gotta head out. I'll clean the pan later."

As Erika departed, Benny looked into scheduling a redelivery for that evening after they were due back from classes. Micah was destined to arrive after class just in time to be barricaded from their flat by a moving guy and the silhouette of some monstrosity lying horizontally on the next flight of stairs.

"Is... everything good?" Micah asked, climbing to join the mover on the landing.

"Yeah, we're just taking this up to the top floor," he said, slightly out of breath, hands on his hips. "I'd recommend coming back in... fifteen minutes or so."

And so, Micah did. He stopped by the bodega down the street that Benny worked at on the weekends. The air was growing chilly in the dense shadows of the evening, which was made all the more apparent by Micah having forgotten his jacket that day. A hot coffee would do him some good, and so this is what he returned with.

He found the flight he'd been barricaded on vacant. A ruckus was still amuck several flights above on their floor. Oh, the redelivery, he realized, and hurried to investigate. The tail end of the beast was sticking out of his apartment door, tilted on its side.

It was a sofa.

A real, heavens to Betsy, sofa.

Micah froze at the top of the stairs, coffee in hand. The movers were talking and, on the count of three, hefted the couch over the threshold. It was the only time Micah had seen a couch survive the ascent and entry into their apartment after their first (and last) failed attempt.

Benny butt-dial ordered a couch?! Micah thought, which made only partial sense. Benny had his credit card saved on his phone (Micah would never be caught dead storing his credit card information on his phone—a conspiracy theory he would die by), and Micah often caught Benny window-shopping couches. He always saw the price tag, his savings, and would say, "Maybe next month...?"

That day, it seemed, was officially the month.

Micah followed the movers in, still staring. The leather couch was still wrapped in plastic and foam, but most had been removed to fit it through the door. Now, against the exposed brick around the warehouse windows, it was perfect. He convinced himself Benny must have already had it in his cart to make the butt-dial order possible.

Benny was in the kitchen, hand over his mouth, looking near-tears.

Micah startled. His heart was racing. "You ordered that?" Micah whispered. "Are your savings okay? That had to be over ten grand, right?"

And then, to his horror, Benny squeaked, eyes glossy, "Y-Yeah, ten grand..."

"I reiterate: your savings—"

Benny shut his eyes as though mourning. Micah didn't think he'd ever seen Benny's bank account reach over two grand, and that was only because of his brief stint selling feet pics for the bit.

The movers polished the leather for them, which had to cost an extra fifty on their shipping costs. Micah was tallying it all in his head as the movers thanked them and bid them adieu. Micah shut and locked the door behind them before turning to Benny.

"It's okay. Erika and I can get groceries the next couple weeks," Micah reasoned.

Benny just shook his head, hand still over his mouth, silently crying. Slowly, inch-by-painful-inch, Benny lowered himself to the ground to hug his knees.

Micah followed him down. "Dude, seriously—"

"I didn't buy it," Benny sobbed. He slapped both hands over his face, smiling through the tears, and said, "Alistair ordered it. He bought us a couch, oh my God."

The tension lifted.

"Oh thank fuck." Micah fell back onto his ass with relief, hand to his hair, the other still rubbing Benny's back. Benny still had his savings. If anything were to happen, the mortgage, HOA, and insurance for the condo wouldn't stop from mowing them over like a steamroller.

After the shock wore off, Benny's words bled through Micah. Eyes wide, he stared at Benny and then, with purpose, at the couch.

It was a corner couch and appeared to have come in two parts. He pushed to his feet to investigate. A packet was left on the ottoman (a matching ottoman—!) along with a gift note. He turned it over.

See you soon, it read, followed by Alistair's name printed in that shitty fake-handwritten font the manufacturer used.

Micah flicked the card against his hand, annoyed. He knew the card wasn't for him, but he couldn't resist the temptation to tear the card. And he would have, if Benny hadn't lurched to his feet to read the note for himself.

And then burst into sentimental tears all over again. "I've—never—owned a couch before—!" Benny sobbed, and collapsed face-first onto said couch.

Micah rolled his eyes and walked off. "I'll be in my room," he said with excess bitterness.

Delusion kept him wondering if Alistair hadn't gotten the couch just for Benny. After all, Benny had two roommates. Micah and Erika would, presumably, be using it just as much as Benny in the coming years.

Micah shook his head, shut his door, and thumped his fist against his forehead. Stop thinking about him! he seethed internally.

He extracted his bandaid solution from his pocket. His notifications alerted him to new messages and, upon investigation, a photo. Mouth watering, Micah responded with a simple, "I'm coming over. Send me your address."