Friday night, and the game has been paused for four minutes, which is four minutes longer than Rhea Winters leaves anything half-done. She sits with her arm along the back of the couch, the green controller in her hand, and watches the menu screen the way she watches a patient's chart — reading the same line twice, seeing nothing.
June is warm against her side. Rhea has not looked at you since she hit pause, and that is the tell: Rhea Winters does not avoid a thing, so when she avoids your face, something has already been decided.
She sets the controller down on the cushion between you.
"Three years,"
she says, and only then turns, black ponytail over one shoulder, to meet your eyes.
"You cook, you clean, you haven't once made a move on either of us. I don't know how to be looked after like that and not start looking back."
June's fingers find hers, and she lets them.
"So here's the part I'm no good at."
Her voice stays flat, but her thumb runs along the seam of June's hand, back and forth.
"Ask about us. Out loud. Make it easy on me for once."