Chapter 9
9
Evie hauls the last of the cardboard boxes that contain her life into the empty bedroom in Theo’s apartment.
Her bedroom.
In their apartment.
Evie’s still getting used to that—calling it theirs .
She places the final box on top of the stack in the corner of the room, winded from multiple treks up and down the steps that lead to and from Theo’s second-story unit. Their unit. Evie wipes the sweat from her eyebrows, the back of her neck, between her thighs. She then turns on the window AC and sticks her face directly in front of it, closing her eyes and letting the cool air shock her system, allowing herself a minute to catch her breath. It’s been ten days since Evie married her best friend, a week since their apartment application was approved, and five days since she gave notice at her job. Next week, she’ll say goodbye to a podcast she started working on straight out of undergrad and to a team of people who, besides Saskia, she’ll likely never speak to again. Once she’s on the other side of this job, she’ll have a week to unpack and decompress before she starts working under Sadie Silverman. Her hero.
It’s all been A Lot.
Evie places her hand over her fluttering heart, not sure of the source of its overreaction—whether she can blame moving heavy boxes in the heat or the reality that this room is hers , that she lives here.
With Theo.
The boxes , she decides.
It has to be.
Sure, Evie’s life has changed in these first ten days of marriage. But so far, true to his word, nothing about her relationship with Theo has. His vows did not burrow their way into her heart. When his tongue slid into her mouth, it did not alter her brain chemistry because she already knew that Theo is a fantastic kisser. Objectively. They spent their wedding night watching Survivor . He cooked vegan enchiladas. She helped clean the kitchen, then drove back to Gen’s because the apartment wouldn’t be theirs until Micah and Pranav moved out the following weekend.
At the time, another week and a half on Gen’s couch felt like an eternity.
“Evelyn?” Theo’s voice enters the room. “You okay?”
“Overheating,” she says.
“Same.”
Theo joins her, stands at Evie’s side, and though her eyes are still closed, she feels his left arm press against her right, an indication that he, too, is hinged forward so his face is next to hers. He still smells like mint and eucalyptus and their adolescence. This is exactly how afternoons practicing new choreography in the bungalow would conclude, with the fan speed set as high as possible, with the temperature as low as it could go, with Evie and Theo almost cheek to cheek, their breath ragged, their hearts pounding in unison. This position? It brings Evie back to being sixteen, to the height of her crush, her lust, all the unruly feelings she vomited into a trash can after the most embarrassing promposal to ever promposal. To imagining their ragged breath, their tangled limbs, in an entirely different context…
Evie swallows.
Stands straight.
Theo is still bent over, shirtless, and seemingly on the verge of making out with the AC. Her eyes follow the planes and contours of his back—from his sculpted deltoids to the sharp jut of his shoulder blades, down the curve of his spine. He relaxes into a forward fold, drawing her eyes to the tattoo on his left bicep. Slow down, you’re doing fine. Billy Joel. A lyric from “Vienna.” The same song tattooed on her ribs. Theo then stands and pushes matted curls off his forehead, that tattooed bicep flexing. Hot , she thinks. Theo is hot. Evie finds it better to acknowledge it, the attraction, the occasional filthy thought that comes with it, than to deny it. He’s her best friend. Her platonic soulmate.
But she has eyes .
“Do we need to make any more trips?”
Evie blinks, then shakes her head. “That’s everything.”
Silence— stillness —settles between them. Evie and Theo have been in a state of motion, propelled by to-do lists and logistics and cardboard boxes. But that’s everything. There’s nothing left to do. They can stand still. Be married. Whatever that even means.
Theo swallows. “Cool. Well. I’m going to shower, then start dinner.”
“Can I help?”
“I am perfectly capable of taking a shower, Evelyn.”
She shoves his shoulder, ignores his teasing smirk. “With dinner .”
Theo laughs, waving her offer away as he exits the room. “Please don’t.”
Fair enough.
Evie falls backward onto the queen mattress on the floor in the middle of the room, relieved that she doesn’t have to pretend she wants to cook, or even can cook. Theo cooks. Evie eats, then cleans. Please don’t. Another assurance that nothing has changed. She could use a shower as well, so she stands and peels herself out of the tank top and bike shorts that are stuck to her skin, unzips the duffel bag that contains her toiletries, and enters her en suite bathroom. Honestly, the bathroom situation in this unit couldn’t be more ideal, something always top of mind when choosing a place to live. This apartment has two full bathrooms, one in the hallway off the kitchen, the other in the primary bedroom. Initially, she insisted that Theo be the one to move into the much more spacious room that Micah and Pranav once occupied.
She knew he wouldn’t.
Evie twists the faucet and keeps the water just shy of warm, then steps into the cool porcelain tub, grateful for the privacy as her mind wanders down the hall, to Theo in the shower, to a scenario where she is helping him shower , lathering his chest with eucalyptus soap, because as Jules constantly reiterates in therapy, Evie’s thoughts are just thoughts . She’s allowed them.
It’s not like she’d ever act on them.
After, she emerges from her room in a tank top with a built-in bra and basketball shorts, her laptop tucked under her arm. In the kitchen, Nighttime Theo, Glasses Theo, is sautéing vegetables on the stove. Tomatoes. Red onion. Yellow pepper. Evie takes a seat on a barstool at the island, reaching for a diced pepper and popping it in her mouth.
“Is a vegan pasta primavera okay?”
Is that okay?
“More than okay, Theodore.”
“Good, because I already made the sauce.”
Dinners without Theo are basic and boring and safe—tofu over rice, a spinach and tomato omelet, maybe lemon chicken from the Trader Joe’s freezer section and a baked sweet potato if she’s feeling fancy. After her Crohn’s diagnosis, food became exhausting. After some trial and error via a low-FODMAP elimination diet, she learned what foods triggered symptoms and stuck to a handful of simple, tried-and-true recipes, not having the energy or patience to branch out, refusing to invest any more time thinking about food.
But Theo likes to cook.
Believes the time invested in preparing a meal is worthwhile.
Knows the list of foods that are incompatible with Evie’s body.
She watches the ease with which he moves through the kitchen, tossing a dish towel over his shoulder as he sautés. Thirsty, she stands and opens the fridge stocked with every Evie Bloom staple—almond milk with a hint of honey, Tofutti cream cheese, and even her favorite brand of cashew-based yogurt. In remission, her diet is less restrictive than during a flare, but dairy is, sadly, always a firm no . This morning, she nearly teared up seeing a fucking yogurt because it just… it means so much, that he cooks for her, that he fills a fridge with things she can eat, that she’s able to actually enjoy food because of him.
She pulls two pamplemousse LaCroixs from the fridge, placing one on the counter next to the stove for him, knowing he won’t pop the tab until he’s done cooking.
“Thanks.”
Evie returns to her seat and opens her laptop, the web browser still on IKEA. Since Pep and Mo refused to accept rent while Evie occupied the bungalow, she was able to save. Not a lot —there were still so many medical bills and student loan payments—but enough to take a risk on a low-paying fellowship.
Enough, she thought, for furniture.
Her eyes widen.
Then she slams her laptop shut, overwhelmed by the number of choices on her screen and the cost of each choice.
Theo strains the pasta. “Furniture Panic?”
“Furniture Panic,” Evie confirms.
Theo plates the dishes at the counter, then presents them on the island, the closest thing to a kitchen table in their apartment. Two barstools are among the few pieces of furniture that survived the Purge—also known as Micah and Pranav taking all the furniture that rightfully belonged to them. Other survivors include a set of beanbags, a struggling calathea, a fifty-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall, and all Theo’s fancy kitchen shit. Theo doesn’t own a real couch—just every hyperspecific cooking gadget, from an avocado slicer to a tofu press.
“Maybe we should take some of the bungalow furniture,” Theo suggests gently. “For now. It’s just sitting in storage anyway.”
“No.” Evie shakes her head, unable to explain how wrong that feels. As much as she loved the bungalow, she doesn’t want the apartment to feel like Bungalow 2.0, doesn’t want reminders of the place she lost in this new space that she’ll eventually lose, too.
“I get it.”
With Theo, Evie rarely has to explain.
“Unrelated to Furniture Panic…” She takes a bite of cooked onion coated in the cashew-based primavera sauce, and it’s so delicious she almost weeps. “Um. There’s no good lead-in to this so… I’m just going to say it. Jacob posted a photo of us online.”
His jaw hangs. “He did not.”
Evie opens Facebook and shows him the picture she had no idea Jacob took, too distracted by Theo’s hands on the small of her back, by the stubble on Theo’s cheeks scraping her palms, by the mutual face sucking. She watches him process it—the Congrats to the happy couple! caption, the number of comments, the thumbs-up in the corner of a photo way too hot for a Facebook feed.
“Fuuuuuck,” Theo hisses, taking the phone and scrolling through the comments.
“My mom saw this. He hasn’t posted since…” Evie doesn’t finish that sentence. “I didn’t think.”
Theo removes his glasses and drags his hands down his face. “ He doesn’t think. Are you okay? Have your parents…”
“Reached out?” Evie snorts. “Nope.”
David doesn’t believe in social media as a concept, which just feels like an easy out to not keep in better touch with his children. But Naomi? She hearted Jacob’s photo this morning. Evie felt so stupid scrolling through the list of names, checking to see if her mother’s was among them. Pathetic for wondering if this news would be worthy of a phone call. More hurt than she’ll ever admit that nope, it wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn.”
She shrugs.
Chews.
Swallows.
And moves on.
“I don’t have the heart to tell Jacob to take it down, but at least we can untag ourselves and scrub the evidence.”
“Scrub the evidence,” Theo repeats.
Evie nods, her expression serious. “If that photo is tied to our social media it has the power to, like, ruin sex for the duration of our marriage.”
Theo chokes. “ Evelyn .”
“What? I’m serious! People—generally speaking, of course—do not choose to bang married people.”
“Well. You should’ve thought about that before you mounted me in front of my dad.”
“Theodore.”
He snorts, then concedes that she’s probably right about scrubbing the entirely fake but positively incriminating face sucking and immediately locks himself out of his account due to too many password attempts. He had to download the app first. Theo hasn’t had Facebook on his phone since undergrad. Really, he should be thanking her. She’s salvaging his— their —sex life.
Speaking of.
“While we’re on the topic, we should probably establish some rules, like, for bringing people back to the apartment. Right?” When Theo doesn’t respond right away, just stares at her, bemused, she continues. “Sock on the door is cliché but effective. I’m also happy to vacate the premises when you bring a lady friend home. Just give me a heads-up.”
“A lady friend?”
Evie scrunches her nose, as if that’ll mask her blush that’s something fierce. “I can just stay with Gen.”
His eyes sparkle with amusement, like this is funny. It annoys Evie. She’s trying to have a serious conversation. It’s not like they don’t talk about sex, as if they’re incapable of it. Theo knows Evie hooks up with Saskia every time they’re in LA. Evie knows Theo never sleeps with anyone more than three times because of attachment issues that he won’t deny. Sex has never been off the table, in a conversational sense. Evie likes that they’re so open about it. She’s never felt any kind of way about Theo’s sex life.
But in all fairness, she was never living with him.
“Within reason, obviously,” she continues. “I mean, I can’t stay with Gen every night. So.”
“Evelyn.”
“Theodore.”
“How much sex do you think I’m having?”
She swallows. “Um. A lot.”
Once again, Theo laughs, like this conversation is so hilarious. “You won’t be at Gen’s every night.”
“Good. Because I’m happy to go. Just not every night.”
Theo nods. “Cool. Noted.”
She holds eye contact for a moment, then lets the subject circle back to furniture while they finish dinner, a back-and-forth debate that amounts to an IKEA date in their calendar. It’s in hers as HELL because Evie’s certain that if hell is real, it’s the Burbank IKEA. Theo has quizzes on plant structure to finish grading. Evie insists that she’ll clean, that she’s happy to, so he retreats to his room and she scrubs the ceramic pasta pot until her fingers prune, reading way too much into that entire conversation because her anxiety manifests in overanalyzing every social interaction, the moments where she sounds like an absolute idiot always on max volume.
But not with Theo.
Never with Theo.
Yet currently with Theo.
She moves on to loading the dishwasher.
I can just stay with Gen. By trying not to make things weird… did she make things weird? She doesn’t know. She does know that she’d rather stick her hand in a jar of mayonnaise every day for the rest of her life than hear the real, actual sounds that come out of Theo during sex. If she heard them, lips on skin, hands on ass, his frustrated groan—
Glass shatters on the floor.
Evie looks down helplessly at the cup that slipped out of her hand.
Fuck.