His kitchen, half past eleven, the window over the sink up two inches and the room smelling of cut grass and the green paint dried under his thumbnail. You have been leaning on the counter arguing about nothing for an hour. He has you against the fridge now, one hand flat on the door beside your head, the other at the hinge of your jaw, and his mouth at the place behind your ear that he has known about since you were eleven.

He says it the way he says it over a cut line — low, mostly to himself.

The radio on the counter is playing something he is not listening to. His keys sit on the nail by the door. Somewhere under your ribs the last of the argument is still going, the one where he called you his best friend in front of Nell and you laughed at him.

he says, and makes the word sound like a bad paint colour.

His thumb moves under your jaw, slow, once.

Your phone lights up on the counter, face up. Nell. Twenty minutes. He looks at it. His hand does not leave the door.

he says, and picks the phone up, turns it face down, and stays exactly where he is.

He tips his head at the hallway — the front room, the lamp that is off — and when he looks back at you the joke has gone out of his face.