“What does real mean?” I ask.

“Can I be frank with you?”

“I’d rather you be Friday, which is about the same thing.”

She laughs. “I guess you’re right.” Then she sobers. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I don’t say anything, because it looks like she’s working the words around in her head before she lets them out of her mouth. “The Zero girls,” she says slowly. Then she shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“Go ahead and say it, Friday,” I tell her.

“I love them dearly, but they have some serious baggage. Each one carries a different load.”

Paul comes around the corner. “I vaguely remember you carrying a whole suite of luggage, Friday,” he says, his voice a warning. But then he kisses her on the forehead. “And I’m still glad you let me help you carry it.”

“But,” she says, worrying her lip piercing with the tip of her tongue, “I just worry about him,” she finally says on a big gust of breath. “That’s all.”

“What kind of load?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “That’s her story to tell.”

“But you know what it is?”

“Some of it.”

“And it’s bad?”

“Some of it,” she repeats, closing her eyes tightly like she’s fighting with herself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Paul agrees. “But you care. It’s okay.”

“Just be careful.” Her eyes meet mine. “Just be slow and careful.”

After what happened this morning, I’m not sure that slow is possible. But I’ll take her warning in the spirit in which it was intended. “Okay.” I look at Paul. “You want to give me any advice, too?”

“Don’t try to tear down her walls.” He pushes a lock of Friday’s hair behind her ear. “Sometimes they’re in place for a reason.” She covers his hand with hers and holds it against her cheek, and I suddenly feel like an interloper.

“I’m going home,” I tell them. But they’re locked up in one another, and I am not sure they even realize it when I leave the room.

I push myself home, and stop on the corner to get a flower for Star. I don’t even know if she likes flowers, but she did suck my dick this morning, so I feel like I need to make some sort of gesture.

I open the door to my apartment and stop short when I see Star bustling around in the kitchen. She’s wearing a pair of jeans and one of my T-shirts, and she has her hair balled up in a knot on her head. There’s smoke coming from the stove, and she waves a towel in the air and curses.

“Need some help?” I ask.

“I was making dinner,” she says, blowing a lock of hair from her forehead. She throws the towel on the counter. “But I think I messed it up.” Her eyes well up with tears and she blinks them back. “I’m sorry. I wanted to do something nice for you, but I suck at this domestic shit.”

I open the oven and look inside. Whatever she was making looks like a charcoal briquette. “I think it’s dead,” I tell her. I grin at her, and she laughs. “How about if I call for a pizza?”

She nods. I hit the speed dial and order for us, after she tells me her favorite kind. While I talk on the phone, I roll toward her and wrap my free arm around her hip. She leans into my shoulder and lets me touch her there while I talk to the pizza place. I tuck the flower into her hand and she stares at it like it’s a diamond ring or a puppy or some really good porn. It’s like no one has ever given her a flower before. “Twenty minutes,” I tell her when I hang up. “I’m going to go take a shower. Can you listen for the door?” I lay some cash on the counter and set my phone beside it.

She nods. I go and get in the shower. Not even because I’m dirty, but any time I’ve been doing tats, I feel the need to bathe before I touch anything important. And Star is definitely important.

I have soap in my hair when she comes into the bathroom. She’s holding my phone. “You have a call,” she says, her words clipped and short.

“Who is it?” I ask, squeezing one eye shut when soap gets into it.

“I don’t know, but she knows you.”

I take the phone and say, “Hello.”

The past smacks me in the face with the first words out of her mouth. “You can’t hide forever, Josh.”

“Could you give me a minute?” I ask Star.

She glares at me and stomps out of the room. I turn off the water and grab a towel to dry my face. “How did you get this number?”

“You pay the right people and you can find anyone, anywhere,” she says.

“Thanks for the warning. What do you want?”

“She wants to see you.”

My heart stops.

“Why?”

“Who knows why, Josh? She just does.” She heaves a sigh.

“How do you know?” It’s not like she can talk. “What makes you think she wants to see me?”

“I just know. When can you come and see her?”

The thought of walking back into that house after all this time…it turns my stomach. “Let me see if I can get some time off work.”

“I’ll call you later to confirm.”

Now that she has my number, she’ll call me whenever she wants. I could change the number, but she’d just find it again. Now that she knows I’m out, she’ll start to expect things of me. And they’re things I just can’t give her. I can’t give them to anyone. I’m not made like that anymore.