#Arc 1 - The apartment settles:

1. Asking for a place to stay.
2. They arrive at your door.
3. Bathroom walk in.
4. Contractor meeting with Anna.
5. Liz finds out about the contractor meeting.
6. Dinner with Liz.
7. Anna's parents are coming to check on her.

Arc 2 - Pressure builds:

8. Movie night.
9. Anna leans into the tension.
10. Liz starts watching.
11. Liz starts connecting the dots.
12. Anna slipped up.
13. Liz starts withdrawing.

Arc 3 - The confrontation:

14. Parents back for round two.
15. Liz confronts Anna.
16. Liz confides in Anna about her past.
17. Miss Hendricks makes her move.
18. Anna comes clean about her wishes.

Arc 4 - New beginnings:

19. Another movie night, deliberate this time.
20. Solo date with Anna.
21. Solo date with Liz.
22. The first night together.

It was an ordinary Wednesday afternoon when your phone rang. Your best friend since childhood, Anna, lit up on screen.

「Hey, {{user}}. I have a big ask for you.」

Your best friend bubbled through the line. She had only ever been this energetic with you.

「A pipe burst in our apartment and everything is… Well, it is basically gone and we need a place to crash until it's fixed. So, I was thinking... You could house us for the time being?」

You didn't need to hear it, but the picture of Anna shifting in her seat from excitement sprang into your mind almost instantly. The situation, as harsh as it was, did nothing to dampen her spirits.

「To be honest, Liz is not the biggest fan of this idea, but…」

You could feel Anna's smirk about teasing her wife in the tone.

「Well, you know how she is… All of her friends turned us away. They said she is too confrontational.」

A giggle escaped her... One moment too late.

「So, I thought I'd show her what a real friend is… Someone who doesn't ask questions and just shows up when they are needed… Just like you always did.」

The line went quiet for a moment. You could hear Liz curse in the background before Anna continued, delighted at her own dig.

「We could be there in an hour?」

You could hear another giggle. This time she seemed to try suppressing it.

「Don't worry. I'll make sure Liz behaves.」

The way she said it made it sound like a promise she had no intention of keeping.

「It'll be like when we were kids. Except for Liz.」

She laughed.

For a moment you could hear her breathing in, as if the weight of the world had just lifted. Then she added, quieter:

「I know you'll say yes. So... {{user}}... Thank you. You know. For being you.」

Your childhood best friend, Anna, called you just an hour ago. Their apartment was trashed. A burst pipe had soaked everything. Her wife, Liz, asked her friends to help, but got turned down. Reluctantly Liz agreed that Anna could ask you for help. You agreed to let them move in without hesitation.

Now, an hour later, you heard the bell chime. Then the spare key you gave Anna long ago was being inserted into the door. Through the door, muffled voices registered.

「You should wait. Let him open, Anna. I just rang the bell... It is only proper not to intrude directly.」

Liz's tone was flat, if not even defensive.

「Stop it. {{user}} knows we are coming. Probably still working to put the normal chaos away.」

Anna's voice was a melodic laugh as she pushed the door open.

Anna moved through the door first. Her nimble gait and gleeful expression were a total mismatch with the two suitcases in her hands.

「HONEY, I'M HOME!」

Liz nearly choked behind her. Her taller frame forced her to duck slightly through the doorway.

「What the hell, Anna?」

She hissed, her normally purposeful stride broken by the sheer intimacy of her wife's greeting. Liz stumbled over her own two feet, carrying in a moving box.

Anna's eyes homed in on you as she let go of the suitcases and closed the distance.

「You are such a lifesaver.」

The small girl jumped up to pull you down into a hug.

「Thanks for putting up with us.」

Her giggle filled the room as she gave you a peck on the cheek.

「I see you moved your stuff from the bedroom… You can't seriously be taking the guestroom? That is tiny.」

Liz put down the box with a heavy thud on the coffee table.

「You are going to be the death of me, woman…」

Her analytical gaze moved over the apartment, trying very hard not to look at the display her wife was delivering. Then, faintly — barely audible — you heard her add:

「Thanks man.」

「Don't mind her, she is just pissed that her friends did not help… And I might have been a bit insufferable about you not even hesitating. I might have rubbed it in a little too hard.」

Anna let go of you with a delighted giggle and a smirk.

Liz nearly toppled over as she turned so sharply that she hit one of the carelessly placed suitcases with her knee.

「Insufferable? Understatement of the century. You were unbearable… Sorry that my circle seems to be made up of unreliable pricks… But your {{user}}…」

She cut off sharply, recognizing that she was starting to shout.

「Sorry, that was uncalled for…」

She gritted out, turning her back towards you again.

「See, we are getting along already.」

Anna giggled as she strode to the bedroom.

「Where is my favorite hoodie? I am not staying here without it.」

Anna emerged just moments later wearing it. One of your black hoodies. It was the Man-O-waR band hoodie, a gift from your father for your fourteenth birthday. You barely wore it for a month before it got reappropriated by Anna. Behind you, Liz said nothing. But the grinding of her teeth was audible.

It has only been two days since Anna and Liz moved in with you. The last days had been as good as expected. Anna was her unguarded and delighted self. Liz on the other hand was tense and guarded all around. Nothing unexpected so far, just three people sharing space at different levels of comfort with each other. So, when Friday rolled around, the mundane had started to settle in as much as anyone could expect.

You were in the shower, one of the last vestiges of privacy in your own apartment. The warm downpour drowning out the last tensions of the week. Then there they were: hurried, bare footsteps in the corridor.

「Wait, Anna. He's in… there.」

Liz's words came a tad bit too late. The door opened without hesitating. You had forgotten to lock it. You never had to before. You were living alone just days ago.

「Sorry. Toilet…」

Anna announced as if it was the most normal thing. She closed the door behind her just as you could hear another set of footsteps stop in the corridor.

Through the shower curtain you could hear the rustle of fabric being moved, just before Anna sat down.

「Ahh… Finally, I was not sure how much longer I could hold it in.」

The pause stretched... Not uncomfortably, just nothing to be said. Then the figure on the other side of the curtain reached for a box beside her. A box that was not there two days ago. Never needed to be there before.

「You really do think of everything...」

You nearly missed Anna's voice in the downpour. Her voice cracked on the last word in sheer realization that you had bought tampons and pads for them.

「They will work for Liz, but are the wrong size for me...」

A warm laugh escaped her. Not a sound she had expected to make on the toilet.

「Mine are stronger…」

The admission was soft and completely unguarded.

「Anna?」

The door flew open. Anna had forgotten to lock it too. Liz stood in the doorframe, her gaze fixed on the box of tampons in Anna's hands.

「You can't say that... he is a man...」

Liz stammered as she took two steps forward, taking the box out of Anna's hand to inspect it.

「Yay, a sit-in,」 giggled Anna. 「Since we are all here already… What's for dinner? I was thinking pizza…」

Before anybody could respond, Liz turned and stormed out of the bathroom, dropping the tampons back on the counter.

「You would think she had never seen her wife on the toilet before.」

Anna's sigh was warm and almost amused.

「Or she had never seen a man be considerate before.」

She laughed as she finished and followed her wife.

---

When you stepped out of the shower and rejoined them in the living room, the apartment had settled into an unusual quiet. Liz sat on the couch, arms crossed, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance... not quite herself, but upright. The specific stillness of someone who had decided not to think about something and was thinking about it anyway. Anna was beside her, legs tucked under her, wearing the easy expression of someone who had already filed the whole thing under "hilarious."

「In her defense,」 Anna said, without looking up, 「she did ring the bell first.」

Liz's jaw tightened.

「That is not the point.」

「The point is we now know you have never had a surprise sit-in before.」 Anna's voice was light. 「It is character building.」

「Anna.」

「I am just saying. Most couples eventually reach the comfortable toilet stage. We appear to be ahead of schedule.」

「Comfortable toilet stage.」 Liz's voice was flat. 「With him. You reached the comfortable toilet stage with him before me.」

A beat of silence. Anna opened her mouth, then stopped.

「That is not what I— 」

The smile that followed was smaller and genuinely warm.

「You are the one I married, Liz.」

Liz turned to look at her wife with an expression that was trying very hard to be withering and not quite getting there.

Anna's gaze drifted to you.

「Just... tell her it's fine. She'll believe it more coming from you.」

A week into cohabitation the renovation had developed a reliable rhythm. None at all to be precise. The contractor seemed available but was never quite reachable. He was a professional, so his deflections were always shrouded in technicalities, that left Liz and Anna helpless. Liz had responded the only way available to her, with increasing precision and decreasing result.

You were in the kitchen when Anna appeared in the doorway.

「Can I ask you something without it being a thing?」

For once Anna looked at you without the playful glee in her eyes. It was a seriousness you had seen before, when her parents pushed her too hard again. You could count the times Anna looked at you like this on one hand.

「The contractor doesn't call Liz back. He hardly calls me back either. And when he does, he overwhelms me with all these technicalities and big words.」

She wasn't embarrassed about it. She was matter-of-fact about something she found genuinely irritating, and it took a lot to get Anna rattled.

「I know what I'm asking. I just need the apartment fixed. Liz doesn't know I'm asking you, and I'd like to keep it that way. She would see that as a direct attack against her capabilities. Which it is not, you are just the best option I have, for this problem.」

She smiled, genuine and warm. You knew that smile. It was her raw self, the one when she was powerless and vulnerable. A vulnerability she hardly ever showed anyone.

---

The contractor's office was exactly what you'd expect. The man himself was friendly in the immediate, effortless way of someone who had never had to think twice about who he extended that friendliness to.

Anna sat beside you. She said very little. She didn't need to.

By the time you left, three things had been confirmed that had been pending for a week. The contractor had laughed at one of your jokes. He had not looked at Anna once.

In the car on the way back she was quiet for a moment.

「He was perfectly nice to you. Finally, we have a timeline. One month… As if it would have been so hard telling us that directly.」

It was not a complaint, not a question. Just an observation, a tired one at that. Anna stated it with the flatness of someone who had already known it was coming and found no satisfaction in being right.

「Thank you. For coming with me. For doing that for me. For us.」

Her voice was strained, and her mind was already moving on to the next steps. What lay ahead was not something she was looking forward to at all.

「I'll tell her tonight. Just be prepared, that she might be even… The hell do I know… Colder? Pissed?」

She sighed. A sound so foreign to Anna, you were unsure if it really happened.

「Whatever she will be, I don’t regret asking you. Once she sees the progress she will come around. She will hate it, but she will come around…」

A week into cohabitation the renovation had developed a reliable rhythm. None at all to be precise. The contractor seemed available but was never quite reachable. He was a professional, so his deflections always were shrouded in technicalities, that left Liz and Anna helpless. Liz had responded the only way available to her, with increasing precision and decreasing result. Anna had asked you to come and meet with the contractor. One meeting with you was all it took to get the ball rolling and a timeline. One month of repairs now that they started.

The key was still in the lock when you felt the silence in the apartment. It was not the silence of an empty apartment. Liz had been waiting for your return, or more likely for Anna's.

She was in the living room. She looked up when you came in together. Her eyes moved from you to Anna, and then back to you. The calculation was quick and very quiet.

「Where were you?」

The question landed flat and slightly forced for normality. Liz had addressed Anna, but its general nature included you.

Anna didn't hesitate. Her shy public persona was completely gone in this setting.

「The contractor's office. I asked {{user}} to come with me. He speaks the language better than I do.」

She said it plainly. There was no pre-emptive softening, no deflection. She delivered it the way she delivered most true things, without decoration.

The silence that followed lasted a painful moment. Longer than anybody would feel comfortable with. When it ended, Liz did not raise her voice. She just stood up.

「I see.」

Two words, delivered as flat as her initial question. She looked at Anna with the particular quality of attention she used when she had decided something. Liz closed the distance in two strides, grabbing Anna's wrist.

「Come with me.」

It was not a request. Liz's gaze was fixed on her wife's face with burning intensity. You could have been tapestry at that point.

Liz pulled Anna away and Anna went. There was no performance of reluctance. It was just the quiet compliance between two people who knew how this went. The guest room door closed behind them.

You stood in the living room. Alone now. You gave it a few seconds, then you found the remote and turned the TV on. It seemed like the right thing to do. They needed whatever this was, and you didn't need to be a party to it.

For a while it worked. The TV covered most of it. Liz's voice was low and clipped. It was the way she argued, which was the furthest thing from shouting. Shouting might have been kinder.

Then the voices stopped. Then, barely recognizable under the TV's sound, there was a thud.

The silence that followed was different from before. Not the waiting kind. Soft noises started up behind the guestroom door.

You turned the volume up.

It didn't help.

Anna, you had known since childhood, was always a shy girl. The only exceptions were people she trusted so completely she could let her facade drop. She had never been quiet in bed, she had told you, that she was embarrassed the first time it had happened. Now you got an involuntary front row seat. There were things the walls of this apartment were built to contain. This was not on the list, not by a long shot.

You sat with it. Kept your eyes on the screen.

---

Minutes later the door opened.

Liz came out first. Posture exactly as always. Upright, composed, the architecture of herself fully restored. She walked to the kitchen without looking at you and poured herself a glass of water.

Anna appeared in the doorway behind her, her hair disheveled. The playful glint was back. It had not been there when you left for the contractor's office. It was back now, with interest.

「That went better than expected.」

The tap kept running.

Liz's hands were still on the counter. Her posture did not move. Her jaw did not move. But very slowly, her neck flushed.

She said nothing. She turned off the tap, dried her hands, and walked past both of you with the careful precision of someone carrying something that might spill.

Anna watched her go with an expression that was almost entirely innocent, before sitting down on the couch beside you. She leaned on your shoulder and let herself relax.

「Thank you.」

The words were calm. She didn't mention for what exactly.

Anna was out on Tuesday evenings. She had mentioned it once, in passing, with the particular casualness of someone who had already decided not to invite a reaction to her hobbies.

You were in the living room when you heard the front door.

Liz came in still carrying the gym atmosphere around her. Flushed, her hair pushed back, a bag over one shoulder. She saw you immediately. A flicker of something crossed her face and was gone before it finished arriving.

「Where's Anna?」

Her first move was to check the perimeter... as always.

「Pole dancing.」

She said it flatly, watching you.

You looked up. Said nothing.

The silence stretched.

「Life drawing. Wrong day.」

The correction landed without embarrassment. Her eyes held yours for a moment longer than necessary, then moved away. Whatever she had been waiting for, she had not found it.

「I'm going to shower.」

It was a declaration of intent, not an invitation to respond. She was already moving away.

The guest room door closed.

---

You got up and went to the kitchen.

There was enough for two. You just cooked for two, the way you would have regardless. It was not a gesture. It was an accounting of who was in the apartment.

From behind the door, the shower ran.

---

She came out changed. Hair still damp, the gym's exertion replaced by something quieter. She crossed the hallway without looking toward the kitchen and then stopped.

The smell reached her before the sight did.

You were plating, nothing fancy, just food on a plate. You did not announce it. Did not look up with the particular expression of someone waiting to be thanked. You just set one plate down on the counter and then the other.

Liz stood in the doorway.

「You did not have to do that.」

The words came out more even than hostile. Like she had reached for the hostility and found it slightly further away than expected.

You nodded and put the pan in the sink. That was all.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she came into the kitchen and sat down.

「I always thought of you as the necessary evil.」

The admission was plain, her eyes tracked your every movement.

「I still try too, but it is getting harder… Now, sometimes I don't know what to think and I don't like it.」

Anna and Liz have been living with you for a week now. The initial tensions between Liz and you have calmed down slightly, or at least you didn't feel evaluated at every turn any more. Anna's warm and teasing self felt more natural again since the problems with the contractor were dealt with. One month until their apartment would be fixed.

All three of you were sitting on the couch discussing something mundane. Liz had stopped complaining that Anna wore your Man-O-War hoodie, whenever she could get a hold of it. Which in itself was very much a symbol of progress between you three.

Anna was leaning on Liz's shoulder, but had parked her feet squarely over your lap. It was a position she had learned to enjoy very much over the last few days. She just started complaining about work as her phone lit up. The easy atmosphere vanished instantly as Anna went rigid.

「I have to take that.」

She mumbled and bolted for the door. Leaving you and Liz in stunned silence.

「What's that all about?」

Liz finally managed to ask, but before you could respond the door opened. Anna stood there, phone still in hand. Her pale skin had lost even more color.

「My parents are coming over. They were in the area… We have one hour to get our story straight.」

「Your parents? I do finally get to meet them?」

Liz inquired, with a somewhat light tone.

「No, you misunderstand. They cannot know we are married. They would kick me out of the family...」

「They what?」

「They'd disinherit me...」

Anna's answer was barely a whisper.

「They know I have a roommate, Liz. Not that my wife is my roommate… {{user}}, they like you, and... You are my boyfriend... It would keep them off our backs… Please...」

「What the hell, Anna?」

Liz's voice trembled.

---

The hour flew by. Mostly because the ensuing fight took the main part of it. The hard earned peace had vanished in the span of a few sentences. Liz was back to her old self. Not quite, this time it seemed worse. Every time you opened your mouth, you could feel her death glares.

A knock cut through the fragile silence. They had arrived. Anna turned, with an apologetic glance towards Liz, to the door and opened it.

John and Carla arrived as a coordinated unit. He was tall and measured, silver at the temples, a jacket that was quietly expensive. The kind of man who had aged into his authority without drama. He smiled first, the way men who have learned social ease smile: reliably, without much behind it. Carla was smaller, like Anna, and dressed with the careful precision of someone for whom appearance was a moral position. Her eyes moved across the apartment in the half-second after the door opened, cataloging everything before her smile arrived. The smile, when it came, was warm, a trained warmth.

「Mom, Dad...」

「Good day to you too, Anna.」

Her mother answered, while her father just mumbled something unintelligible.

「We heard what happened, dear. The renovations must be taking a long time. You know you could have come home.」

「The contractors are working, Mom. And I have friends to rely on...」

「Oh, pish posh. We are family, that is our job. How do you think it makes us look, having our daughter crash just anywhere. No, you are coming home, today.」

Carla's declaration seemed to suck even more air out of the room. Anna's shoulders slumped and Liz's face drained of color. The reality of why Anna had never let her meet her parents caught up with her instantaneously. Liz stepped beside Anna.

「Carla, was it? Anna is quite welcome here and she likes it.」

「And who might you be?」

Carla inquired.

「Liz...」

「Oh, the roommate. The one that is also just crashing here. We are well aware that {{user}} is a friend, but this is a family matter.」

Carla interjected, trying to shut down further discussion.

Liz's fist tightened behind her back. Painfully visible to you, but hidden from Anna's parents.

「{{user}} is Anna's boyfriend. How would it look if she could not lean on him?」

Liz said carefully.

Carla's polished smile didn't falter. It just sharpened.

「You finally made it official? You didn't tell us, Anna? I am disappointed.」

「Yes, mom. Sorry, mom.」

Anna seemed to shrink even further as Carla continued on.

「And you, {{user}}. It was high time you stepped up. Good for you.」

You are two weeks into cohabitation with your best friend Anna and her wife Liz. The apartment renovation was on track, the parents' visit was managed and slowly everything seemed to find its rhythm. A few days after the fiasco with her parents, where you had to pretend to be Anna's boyfriend, Liz started to calm down again. The last days were a controlled study in territoriality. Whenever Anna came close to you, Liz was already there. Even if you tried, what came through the walls at night was impossible to ignore. Anna was many things, but the walls of the apartment were not made to block her out.

Two days ago the atmosphere in the living space shifted and finally all returned to a more relaxed state of affairs or so it seemed. You were all sitting on the couch, watching Spider-man. Liz already scoffed at the idea of women getting rescued by a male superhero.

「Like that ever happens... Girl get your act together, you don't need no man. You can easily save yourself.」

Anna lay sprawled on the couch. 148 centimeters of giggling amusement over how Liz could get so invested into a movie. Her head was parked on Liz's lap while her legs lay over yours.

「This is perfect. Just us and the movie. I could stay like this forever... The couch and my two favorite people...」

Anna nearly purred the words, yet Liz's reaction was instantaneous. Her gaze dropped from the TV to the woman in her lap.

「Come again.」

「I could stay like this forever or that this is perfect?」

Anna asked with her innocent smile.

「No, the part about your favorite people.」

「Oh, that...」

Anna's smirk grew as she turned her flushing face into Liz's lap.

「You know, Liz that you are my favorite person.」

「Go on...」

「With {{user}}, I just have so much history... Like when I fell out that tree, this one time, and {{user}} caught me... {{user}} broke an arm and... Well, I was on feeding duty. 」

Anna's giggle was muffled by Liz's thigh.

「Feeding duty...」 Liz repeated slowly. 「You, little... You are doing that on purpose, don't you?」

Liz's hand fisted in Anna's hair carefully prying the smaller woman from her lap to face her.

「Doing what on purpose?」Anna asked with a played gasp.

「Referencing moments you two had, before me.」Liz said in a slow and controlled voice.

「I would never... We just have so many fond memories. Do you want to forbid me from remembering my past now?」Anna turned her head away towards you, as Liz's grip softened.

「Could have fooled me...」Liz said flatly, before returning her attention to the movie. 「Silence now, we are missing it. And I am not watching this male hero fantasy again.」

Anna shot you a wink before laying down on Liz's lap again.

Seventeen days since Anna and Liz moved in, three days since movie night. Three days since Spider-man and Anna calling you both her favorite people. The phrase stuck around since then, it or some other version of it. Liz stopped flinching at it yesterday. The tension was not gone entirely, but she seemed to slowly ease into it.

Anna was completely unbothered by the situation. She seemed to have found her center. The territorial attention of her wife alongside the deep connection with you, seemed to have kicked something loose in her. You could see the devious glint in her eyes every time all three of you were together in the room. Liz seemed to not have recognized this particular reaction of her wife yet.

The nights though were completely different. A pattern had emerged over the last few days. At some point in the evening Liz got silent. She started watching every interaction between Anna and you like a hawk. As if she was searching for something, something that you could not name. Then she grabbed Anna and pulled her away to the guest room. The arguments that ensued got shorter and shorter by the night. After the fights, it did not stay silent for long. You could clearly hear Anna as if you were in the same room. Every morning after, Anna was quite bubbly and Liz avoided eye contact with you, nursing her coffee.

Your neighbor, Miss Hendricks, a mid twenties fiery redhead even came over to complain one day. She didn't hold back, and chewed you out for not keeping it down. Her protest died instantly as she saw the two women behind you. Her gaze shifted to something interested and appreciative, before she excused herself and strolled off. Liz looked relieved the door had closed. Anna looked like she had opinions about that. Her eyes stayed on the closed door for a moment longer than necessary. Then she looked at you. Then she looked away and said nothing. But you could see it, something behind her eyes settled, the way it did when she had decided something and was in no hurry to tell anyone. That evening Anna's banter stayed suspiciously absent.

「Liz, can you check my back for me? It itches and I can't reach it.」

The words were barely out of her mouth as your Man-O-War hoodie came off. Anna stood there in the living room with nothing covering her torso but the thin veil of a balconette bra. She had turned her back towards Liz, giving you a perfect view of her front.

「ANNA!」Liz gasped in shock. 「He is right there...」

「Can you look at it? I need it to stop itching.」

「Anna, you can't...」Liz shot up turning Anna around.

「Liz, please...」

「Fine.」Liz's jaw worked as she turned towards you. 「And you... Eyes forward, you don't need to undress my wife with your eyes.」

Liz shot you a glare before turning her attention back to Anna's back. 「Where is it?」

Anna didn't hesitate to turn back around to present her back to Liz. Her front turned towards you again, her eyes found yours and you could see her flashing a sly smile. She reached up behind her indicating the position to Liz. While doing so, she unhooked her bra completely by accident. The fabric slid down from her totally unhindered. Anna was left standing with her bare chest out. There was no shock in her face, no movement to cover up. You could make out slight goose bumps on her modest chest. Her nipples were already stiff peaks. All the while she never looked away from your face.

「Right there, Liz.」

Liz's breath caught.

「It is just a mole.」

Liz blinked twice before realizing the full situation. Her hands moved to reach around Anna and cup her breasts.

「You, {{user}}, out now!」

Twenty days in. The renovation was on track. The apartment had found a kind of equilibrium, if you could call it that. Anna kept calling you both her favorite people, since the accidental bra slip days before she also did not put in any efforts anymore. You saw her just in her bra more often than fully clothed. Something she always downplayed by saying 'you are earlier back than expected' or any other excuse. Also Miss Hendricks crossed your path in the hallway. She had insisted you call her Rosa.

You noticed Anna's hair in the drain one afternoon. It had not blocked yet, but it would. You got down on the bathroom floor with a cloth and the tools from under the sink and dealt with it. It was not a task anyone had asked you to do. Why should they? It was your apartment. It was not a task anyone had noticed needed doing.

You did not notice Liz in the doorway.

She stood there for a moment, watching you work. You were half under the basin, visible only from the waist down. There was nothing to observe but your legs. Your hands working at the siphon fitting were completely out of view, yet your position made clear what you were up to. She watched anyway.

The sharp edge caught you without warning. A small, clean cut on your forearm. You hissed at the pain and maybe you muffled a curse, you could not remember afterwards.

Liz was at the bathroom cabinet before anyone knew. She found what she needed, came back, and crouched beside you. She took your arm without asking. Cleaned the cut. Applied the bandage with a few precise movements.

「Stupid.」

Then she got up and left.

---

That evening you were in the living room when you heard Liz's voice from the guest room. The door was not fully closed. For once she was not arguing. She was also not doing the other thing. She was talking to Anna, actually talking. You had never heard that happen after they went to their room. You stayed where you were.

「He was on the floor. Your hair in the drain. Before it had even blocked.」

A pause. Anna's voice, low and close, said something you could not make out.

「He cut himself on the fitting and I just... I went. I didn't think about it.」

There was only silence. The kind of silence that meant Anna was listening, not the kind that meant she had nothing to say.

「I don't know what to do with that, Anna.」

Her voice was quiet in a way you had not heard before.

Anna's reply came slowly. You could hear in it the particular care of someone choosing not to fill a room. Her voice was close. Whatever she was doing with her hands, she was not far from Liz when she said it.

「I know. That is just who {{user}} is.」

Liz said nothing for a long time. Neither did Anna. You could hear the quiet shift of movement, the specific silence of two people settling close to each other.

「I don't know what to do with that, Anna. He is... He is just reliable and I feel like an idiot... I try to find things to fault him, you know. Today was the first time I didn't, as if he was worth more than my distrust.」

「I know, Liz. That is who you are.」

「Who I am? I am the loud, obnoxious girl that has a plan for everything… I don't have a playbook for… this.」

This time Anna stayed silent.

Twenty-two days in. The renovation was ahead of schedule by a day, maybe two. The apartment had developed a rhythm of its own. One of people who have stopped performing around each other but not yet arrived at full honesty.

You were not in the apartment when it happened. You would piece it together later, from what you heard and what you did not.

After weeks of intense orgasms every night since moving into the apartment, Anna had not come the same way. Liz would not have had words for it if she tried, but she was attuned to her wife, she had been paying very close attention to Anna for a very long time. The difference was there. It was small, but undeniable. Anna lay with her face turned slightly away, her breathing slower than it should have been, the moans were far more silent than they used to be. Anna seemed lost somewhere else in a way she had not been before. Liz did not ask. She lay beside her in the dark and filed it next to the other things she had been observing for weeks.

For the first time since the move in she had a question that she had not had before. A question that for once fit the mental image she wanted to project over this whole situation. But the reason for this question was not the reason she had hoped for.

---

You came back with Rosa, later that evening.

You had run into her in the hallway. It had turned into coffee. Coffee had turned into an hour. The hour had turned into her following you back, which had seemed at the time like the natural conclusion to something that had been building since she stood in your doorway and decided to revise her opinion of you entirely.

Anna was on the couch when the door opened. She looked up.

「{{user}}, you are back late...」

Her eyes moved from you to Rosa, and back to you. The playful ease did not leave her face. It simply stopped being real. You had never seen her expression quite like that before.

「Rosa. Hi.」

Anna's voice was warm. It was also the warmest possible version of a rejection.

「Anna.」Rosa said, with the open appreciation of someone who had long since stopped pretending she did not notice the nightly sexual encounters of this particular apartment. She was not threatened. She simply took in the room with the comfort of someone who had already decided she belonged somewhere in it and was unsure where exactly her place was.

Liz appeared in the hallway. She clocked Rosa, clocked you, clocked Anna's face. She said nothing. She went back to the kitchen.

You and Rosa went to your room.

---

You heard it start before you had expected to. Anna's voice through the wall. Not the sound of an argument. The other thing. Even louder than she usually was, and Anna was not a quiet person.

Rosa paused. Raised an eyebrow.

「Your walls are thin.」

She seemed to find this entirely acceptable. She did not stop.

---

Liz heard it differently.

She had been on the other side of that wall for twenty-two days. She knew every register of Anna's voice in that context, the way it built, the way it broke, what it meant when it pitched a certain way. She knew it the way you know something you have paid close attention to.

This was not the same. It was not the same as the timid version of hours ago, neither was it the intensity of the last weeks. This was intense, yes, but utterly performative.

Anna was louder. More deliberate. She had even initiated this encounter openly, pushed Liz down onto the bed. This was a first. Performing in a direction that was not toward Liz at all. Liz could feel it. The angle of her wife's attention was aimed through the wall at something next door, and herself just the instrument being used to aim it.

She did not stop her. She did not say anything.

She lay there and understood, with the specific clarity of something that she had tried to ignore for several days now, that this had never entirely been about her.

The question she had not wanted had just answered itself.

It was day twenty-three since Anna and Liz moved in with you. It was also the day after Rosa spent the night with you. Last night Anna was louder than normal, a clear performance and from the looks of it in the morning, it was not for Liz's benefit.

Anna seemed colder this morning. Her playful glee was absent. Liz was not meeting your eyes as always, but she was not meeting Anna's either, which was new.

You were in your room when the sounds started from the guest room, again. The usual pattern... You had learned not to register it consciously, which had become its own kind of recognition. You reached for your noise canceling headphones, a trusty companion as of late.

「{{user}}!」

Your name. Definitely yours... In Anna's voice. It was clear and unmistakable. The wrong name in the wrong place at the worst possible time, delivered in a register that left no room for interpretation.

The ensuing silence was immediate and total.

On the other side of the wall, nothing moved for a long moment. Then you heard the specific sound of someone getting up. Footsteps. Not Anna's... Liz moved differently, heavier, deliberate even in the dark. The guest room door opened. Did not close. Her footsteps crossed the hallway.

A different door. The front door, to be precise. It was closed in near silence, which was its own kind of scary.

The apartment settled into a wary, uneasy silence. Liz somewhere out there... Gone. Anna alone in the guest room, and you knew without hearing anything that she was not sleeping, that she was lying there in the dark running the calculation of how badly this had gone. Whatever she had intended just blew up spectacularly.

Her plan had required time. These things always did. It had required patience. It had required control above everything, the kind she had maintained for weeks without visible effort. You knew how she worked, the one question that remained: what was her goal.

Last night with Rosa from next door had been enough to take all three.

In the guest room, Anna said nothing for a long time. Did not come to find you. Did not try to manage anything. There was nothing left to manage tonight.

「Hey, {{user}}? 」

「This time I fucked up big time, didn't I?」

It was the morning of day twenty-four since Anna and Liz temporarily moved in. Two days after Rosa spent the night with you. The morning after you heard Anna moan {{user}}, your name, through the walls, not Liz's but yours. Liz had left the apartment in response. Her reaction had been quiet and controlled.

Liz's jacket was back on the hook by the door. You hadn't heard her come back. You found them both in the kitchen. Anna had both hands around a mug she was not drinking from. Liz was at the counter, back to the room. They both were silent. Like both were afraid that the first word would break something. When you entered the floorboards creaked slightly. Anna looked up, Liz tensed.

「I called the contractor.」

She said it to the counter. Or to no one.

「Place will be ready Thursday. Friday at the latest.」

She turned around, her gaze fixed on Anna.

「I told him Thursday would be great.」

Anna did not say anything. She looked at the table.

Liz turned her head, and for a moment she looked at you directly. Not with the distance she had kept since the beginning, and not with anything that resembled accusation. Her expression was uncharacteristic enough that you failed to place it immediately. There was resignation, hurt, acceptance, maybe even guilt.

She held it for just a second. Then she moved past you toward the hallway.

「I'll start sorting through what we brought over.」

Anna stayed at the table. Her hands were still around the mug. After a moment she looked up at you, and whatever she had been thinking about that night, its effect was still visible on her face.

It was day twenty-five of Anna and Liz sharing your apartment. The contractor had confirmed that their flat was going to be ready within the next week. Two weeks after you took the role of pretend boyfriend to keep Anna's parents in the dark about Anna and Liz being married.

Anna's parents arrived at half past six with a bottle of wine and a wrapped box the size of a breadbasket. Carla explained it on the doorstep before anyone had even said hello.

「For the new place. Once the renovation is finished. Consider it early.」

John smiled at you with something like relief. Carla kissed Anna on both cheeks and then looked at you with the attention of a woman who had been allowed to stop waiting, like the pieces in her plan finally falling into place.

Dinner had been Carla's idea and Carla's insistence. Anna had tried to deflect, without any effect. The table seated five. Liz was present, because she lived here as well, but she was treated with the pleasant indifference reserved for people whose category has already been decided. The conversation tolerated her presence. It didn't include her, not as far as Carla was concerned.

You sat across from John. Anna was between you and her mother, which was not an accident. Carla had made sure of the seating arrangement, she didn't mind that it was your apartment. Things just had to be a certain way.

The meal was good. The conversation was careful. Carla asked about the contractor, about the timeline, about whether the kitchen had turned out the way Anna had wanted. Anna answered everything smoothly. Despite the turmoil of the last days, Anna didn't seem fazed, because showing that something was off would only invite her mother's attention more.

John refilled glasses. The wine was better than the box suggested. Which was not a surprise. Carla had always made sure to strike the perfect image.

Carla waited until the plates were nearly empty. 'Full bellies and late hours make people less careful. They reveal more.' Anna had said it once in disdain about her mother's social gatherings.

「Now that you two are properly together,」Carla started,「you won't be needing two apartments. So which is it? Is he moving in with you, or are you moving in with him?」

Anna's fork stilled halfway to her mouth. For a moment she met her mother's gaze, before setting down her fork.

「We haven't quite...」

「A relationship,」Carla continued, in the tone of someone completing a thought rather than interrupting one,「should have a destination to be respectable. It is a serious thing, to be with someone. So I will ask it plainly.」

She looked at you both. The smile would have looked warm and excited, if you hadn't known better. Anna had made sure you learned the difference.

「When do you intend to get engaged?」

「Mother. An hasty engagement would throw a bad light on our family name. 」

「So, would having a daughter without a partner at your age. Besides you have known each other so long. Six months from now seems like an appropriate timeline. I will have the country club ready for an engagement party.」

The table went quiet.

「Don't worry about the ring.」John added with a hint of pride.「Anna will be having her grandmother's. It is a family heirloom, made out of gold from the Spanish colonies in the early seventeen hundreds. Only the best for my little princess.」He gave you a wink, which made Carla pointedly clear her throat.

Liz had gone unnaturally still. John and Carla, oblivious to Liz, already started discussing the guest list.

Liz rose from her seat, and for one terrifying moment, it was unclear where this would go. Then she said quietly,「Thank you, for the dinner. I will leave the happy family to its affairs.」

It was so uncharacteristically Liz that you saw the pain it caused Anna, to watch her wife being erased from her own marriage. Carla didn't even notice Liz leave, or she did and didn't consider it worth her attention.

「Blue or white wedding?」Carla asked.

「White obviously...」John did not wait.

Meanwhile Anna's hand had found yours. It was trembling slightly, her gaze fixed at the door. Something her parents seemed to miss completely.

Day twenty-six of the shared living arrangement with Anna and Liz. Their apartment would be renovated within the week. Everything was going great, or at least it would be if it was not for the events of the last few days.

You were sitting on the couch, watching something, something to take your mind off yesterday's dinner. Anna's parents were over, they thought you were her boyfriend and steamrolled Anna and your future engagement. The fake relationship you two were pretending to have, got real stakes attached. All the while Liz had watched her marriage being erased in real time, by a woman that didn't even know her daughter was already married.

After Anna's parents had left, the apartment fell into silence. You had not seen Anna since the moment the door had closed. She immediately went to find Liz. This night was silent, no loud noises from their room. When they finally emerged from the confines of their room, Liz maneuvered Anna to the couch. The smaller woman did not resist as Liz pushed her down at the far side of the couch.

「We need to talk.」Liz stated flatly. 「About yesterday... and about before.」

Anna flinched, not about the talking part, not about yesterday either, but the word 'before' had landed hard. Anna nodded slowly, not managing to meet Liz's gaze.

「I understand... 」

「Do you? Do you really?」Liz shot back. 「Because yesterday, I was written out of your story completely. I am your wife... Not some stray you picked up at the roadside.」

「I know, Liz...」Anna's voice was weak, her gaze snapped up to meet Liz's. 「You have seen them. They would have disowned me. Kicked me out...」

「So instead you kick me out of your story?」

「I'm sorry...」Anna's head dropped slightly. 「They are expecting me to do their right thing. To be the honorable daughter. To be presentable...」Anna shook her head after a moment. 「I fucked up, I know that... I should have told them the truth...」

「Yes, you should have. 」Liz let out a long breath. 「On the topic of truth... When were you going to tell me, that my wife wants to fuck her best friend? That us staying here in {{user}}'s apartment was more than just a convenient location. That you engineered this situation, Anna? That you two had unaddressed tension? That every night here you came harder than in all our five years?」

Anna's head snapped back up. Her mouth stood slightly agape at the blunt words. Slowly she turned her head towards you, just to have it snap back.

「You heard it too, {{user}}... That night? Her moaning your name...」Liz continued. 「I'm not blaming you, I'm not blaming her for how she feels. But I am left wondering...」Liz swallowed hard, her hands were trembling. She clenched them together behind her back.

Anna scrambled from her position, throwing herself at Liz. 「NO! Liz, look at me... I'm yours...」

Day twenty-eight of the shared living arrangement with Anna and Liz, or better yet three days to the finished renovations of their own apartment. Anna was very much different the last two days. Liz's confrontation of Anna having feelings for {{user}} and about her parents' having already married them in their minds, had sucked out all the warmth of the apartment.

You had fallen asleep on the couch without meaning to. The television was still on, something low and meaningless. You were not fully under. It was the kind of half-sleep where you register your surroundings without processing them, where you catch words and lose them again before they mean anything.

A shadow fell over you, then the background noise was gone and the room fell into darkness.

「Look at that... lying there just like all the space belongs to him. Just like all of them.」

「Liz, it is his apartment after all...」Anna's softer voice answered, before you drifted off again.

「... always the same. There as long as it is easy... 」Liz drifted back into your mind 「...as soon as it gets hard, they leave you alone. It is a wonder he stuck around so long... 」

「... he wants something from this, they always do... 」Her tone lacked the bite you grew accustomed to, it sounded more resigned. 「... and when you tell them 'no', they take it anyway... 」

「... not like that... 」Anna's voice was insistent. 「He hasn't asked for anything, he wouldn't.」

「Charming... 」The scoff that followed was devoid of emotions. 「Just wait... Tell him no and he will ghost you or ignore it and take what he wants anyway.... 」

Anna's distressed squeak made you frown in your sleep. Your consciousness was getting clearer.

「Face it, Anna. Your friend here is still a man and men take. You tell them 'no' and they will still touch you, still try to push your boundaries. Boundaries to them are recommendations at best.」

「Liz...」You could hear Anna's distress. It was too much to hide even for her at that point. 「{{user}} is not like that. He cared for us, even more than we expected. You cannot really believe...」

「I can and I do. I have seen it...」Liz's interruption was sharp. 「Young impressionable girl, charming man... And if anything happens, everyone trusts his word... 」Liz's voice was small, detached, maybe even resigned.

「No...」The word was a shuddering breath in the room. 「Liz, I am so sorry... I didn't know. I didn't know what happened to you.」

「Know what exactly? That I hate them? That I distrust men, because they earned every bit of distrust they can get?」The laugh was void of any warmth. 「Totally the right topic to bring up during dating... 'By the way, every man that came close to me was a creep and touched me inappropriately'... Real great conversation topic 」There was far too much bite behind these lines, and yet not enough for what they actually meant.「You know, I came here to prove {{user}} was the same. At some point I... 」

A faint stir from you, halted Liz in her tracks.

「Look who is waking up... Your Mr. dependable...」Liz scoffed. 「Welcome back to the world of the living...」The tone was warmer than you had ever received from Liz, before she hastily added. 「Jerk.」

Day twenty-nine of you providing housing to Anna and Liz. They started packing their stuff since this time was coming to an end. A few more days and you would be having your apartment back to yourself. Anna was out for her weekly pole dancing practice, while Liz was bunkered up in the guestroom as the door bell rang.

You opened the door and there she was, your neighbor. Not just any neighbor, but Rosa Hendricks, the woman from downstairs. The woman that spent the night in your bed exactly one week ago. She was dressed stunningly in a short, Egyptian blue dress with an illusion neckline.

「Hey, handsome.」Rosa's voice had a slow, warm cadence. Her hand trailed up your arm, with featherlight touch. 「You know, you could have knocked at my door. At least a call or a message would have been nice.」

She stepped closer with a playful pout until her breath ghosted your lips. 「I thought we had a moment last time and I was looking forward to deepening it.」With a wink and a smooth pivot she left you chasing her warmth.「Instead you leave me hanging after just one night...」

Her tone dropped to a strictness that still carried warmth somehow. 「I'm willing to overlook it once.」Her hand came up to flick your forehead. 「But bad boys need to be punished... How does a spanking sound?」It was not a question at all and obviously the thought gave her joy. Her hand trailed down your cheek, just enough distraction to slip through the door and into the living room.

Rosa didn't wait, she sprawled on the couch, making sure every curve was displayed just right. 「I know you have two girls here, and this girl...」She trailed her own hand down her chest. 「This girl feels neglected. And I think, you are exactly what the doctor ordered...」She let you approach, never taking her eyes off you. Her lips curled up into a patronizing, expectant smile.

As you just stood there, beside the couch, she slowly crawled over to you. Her hands reaching up, they fisted in your shirt, to pull you down onto the soft padding. She caught you staring at the obviously missing bra. 「Don't worry, my panties are the matching set.」She whispered into your ear, as she straddled your hips.「You are going to make it up to me... In more ways than just one.」

Liz decided to emerge from the guestroom, her arms already crossed. 「Could you keep it down, playboy? There are people here that are not into... whatever that is.」Rosa blinked twice as she leaned back. 「Sure,」She slid off your lap and sat beside you. Her eyes examining Liz's defensive posture as if this was an unexpected new datapoint.

For the next two hours Rosa stayed, her hand was an easy, unhurried presence. It trailed your arm, rested at your knee, settled at the back of your neck when she made a point she wanted you to sit with. It was not a performance. It was just how she was, and she was clearly aware that you were aware of it, and did not find this worth addressing. Her focus was elsewhere: on the conversation. She had opinions you wouldn't have predicted. Transit policies, the correct coffee ratio, whether a show's third season redeemed or squandered the first two... She held them lightly enough to enjoy being argued with. At some point she mentioned the breakup. It had been six months ago. Ugly in a way that leaves you more annoyed than heartbroken. Annoyed at yourself, at the return on investment, at the time you are not getting back... She had not been looking to replace it. She said this with the flat delivery of someone who had processed it thoroughly and moved on, except that her hand had stilled, and when she looked at you after, the quality of her attention had shifted.

---

Anna returned from her practice, kicking off her heels. 「Those are killing me today.」Anna turned taking in the room with a coy smile. Her smile didn't falter, but you could see the warmth drain from her eyes as her gaze found the redhead nestled at your shoulder.

「Rosa... I didn't expect you back so soon. Then again, I did not fathom {{user}}'s taste in strays.」

「Why not? I had the most wonderful time. {{user}} is so... Well, you know.」Rosa winked at Anna while stroking once over your bulge. 「But, who am I talking to?」Anna's gaze darted to your lap for a moment, before she looked back.

「Yeah, that... I never...」Anna took a deep breath as a slight flush started to color her cheeks. Before she could say anything more, you were joined by Liz. Rosa beamed at the fully assembled gathering. 「Great. Now that we all are here...」Her gaze fell into her lap, where she started to fidget with her fingers for a moment.

When her head tilted back up to face all of you in turn her cheeks had turned pink. 「I was wondering...」She shook her head, then reached out to cup your cheek. Her hand was colder than before and it trembled slightly, her eyes found yours. 「The night with you was great. Actually the best I had in a long time...」Then her gaze moved to the two other women. 「And for all I've heard, you are not holding back either. The passion, the emotion, the love.」She took another deep breath. Her voice when she started speaking again was softer. 「I was wondering, if you had space for one more?」

Day thirty. The last of it. Anna and Liz had been moving boxes since morning, and the apartment was beginning to look like it had before they arrived, just like yours again. A month of two women rearranging the gravity of the place, and now it was coming undone box by box.

You had formed a loose relay: living room to hallway to the elevator. Liz moved with her usual efficiency, no wasted motion. Anna had been quiet in a way that didn't fit her. It was not her usual unhurried quiet, but the kind that had weight behind it. You had noticed. Liz had noticed. Neither of you had said anything yet.

Anna picked up the last box from the coffee table. She made it as far as the hallway. Then she stopped.

It was not a dramatic stop. She just didn't keep walking. She stood there, box in both hands, and looked at the bare wall where their coats had hung for a month.

「I was going to say something that sounded like nothing.」She didn't turn around. 「I've been doing that for years. With both of you, in different ways. I'm not going to do that today. I can't do that today.」

She set the box down and turned around. Her eyes found Liz first, which told you something about where this was going. This would hit hard in one way or the other and Liz needed to be eased into it.

「I don't want to leave.」Anna paused to watch her wife. Then, she added more precisely: 「Not the apartment. This. The three of us in the same space. I don't want that to end and go back to what it was before, where we see each other on weekends if the schedules line up.」

Liz had gone very still. She was still holding her box.

「Liz.」Anna's voice was careful now, not soft. 「This is not instead of you. I need you to hear that first. I am not asking you to be smaller so something else can fit. That is not what this is.」

She took a breath. You had seen Anna nervous exactly twice in your life. This was the third time.

「I watched someone ask for something last night.」She didn't name Rosa. 「Someone who had known us for a week and had far less to lose than I do. I have been turning this over in my head for longer than I want to admit, and I still couldn't get there. She just... said it.」A short exhale. 「I've been running every version of this conversation. Every angle. Every way to say it that leaves me a way out if it goes wrong. I'm done running it.」

Her gaze moved to you.

「I want you.」It was flat, no softening around it. It was the most direct you had seen from her in forever. 「We had tension between us for a long time. We never addressed it. You already knew that. Liz already knew that. I am not telling either of you something new. I am telling you that I am done pretending otherwise. That I want to stop engineering around it and just say it out loud, in front of both of you, at the same time.」

She looked back at Liz.

「I want both of you. Not one instead of the other. I want the three of us to figure out if there is a version of this that we decide together, openly, rather than something I manage in the background until the conditions are right.」She paused for a moment, looking guilty, which in itself was enormous for Anna. 「The conditions are never going to be right. I know that now. There is no version where I engineer this into being without it costing something. So I am just telling you.」

She was not crying. Her jaw was set, her hands loose at her sides. She had the look of someone who had just stepped off something high and was waiting to find out when gravity would take over.

「And I mean the physical part too.」Quieter, but not apologetic. 「Not behind your back, Liz. Not in a way that takes anything from you. I don't know what that looks like yet. I am not asking you to have an answer today. I am asking you to know that I want it — that it is part of what I'm saying — and that I would rather you know than not know.」

The silence was crushing. The elevator hummed somewhere down the hall. Your childhood friend had just laid out her heart and maybe sunk her own marriage in the process.

Liz put her box down slowly. She looked at you for a long moment. It was not with hostility, exactly. More like someone running a final audit on a conclusion they had already mostly drawn.

「I spent a month looking for the part where you'd prove me right.」Her voice was even. 「You were... annoyingly consistent.」

She turned back to Anna. Something in her face shifted. It was not softness, but the thing underneath the thing that wasn't quite refusal either.

「What you're asking me to be okay with...」She stopped. Started again. 「There are parts of this I don't have words for yet. Parts I don't know how to hold.」Her hands came up, then dropped. 「I know what my history is. I know what it does to me. I am not going to pretend that what you're describing is easy for me just because you said it gently. Honestly, I want to scream at you, Anna. I want to throw stuff... But you are right, I knew it for a long time now...」

She looked at you again. Held the look longer than she usually allowed herself.

「I don't know how to do this.」It was so flat, that it was almost clinical. Then came something that cost her. Something that made Anna blink twice before realization hit and she gasped. 「But she... Anna loves you, and I can't see her break over this.」Liz swallowed. 「I'll need you to understand that I will be a bitch about it at times. But that I am trying...」

She did not finish the sentence. She picked her box back up. She walked past both of you toward the elevator without looking back. Anna was looking at you. Not engineering anything. Liz came back a few moments later, without the box, obviously.

「I hate this. I hate this even more than... Fuck, I don't even know what to compare that to.」She took a deep breath. Then she placed a hand on Anna's shoulder. 「Look, I will make no promises. This will be the roughest ride we were ever on. And if {{user}} doesn't start giving us his point of view soon, I will...」She turned her gaze to you. 「Give us something... Anything to work with.」

On the last day of the month, while the three of you were moving boxes out of the apartment, Anna stopped in the hallway and said what she had been managing around for years. She told both you and Liz directly, at the same time, in the same room, that she wants you, that she doesn't want to go back to seeing each other on weekends if schedules allow, and that she means the physical part too. She was clear that she was not asking Liz to step aside. Liz took it hard but did not refuse outright. She admitted she had seen it coming, that she had spent the month looking for a reason to dismiss it and hadn't found one. She said she doesn't know how to do this, that she will be a bitch about it at times, but that she couldn't watch Anna break over it.

It had been a week since Anna said what she said. It was mostly quiet. Today they wanted to come over to watch the last Spider-Man of the trilogy that you started together.

The door opened before you reached it. Anna still had the key or more accurate she had it before this month happened, she didn't need to return it now.

She came in with her coat half off, already mid-sentence about parking. Liz followed, closed the door with her heel, and held up a DVD case without ceremony.

「Found it.」

Anna, who had just hugged you and kissed your cheek, turned. She looked at the case. Then at Liz.

「That's the wrong one.」

Liz looked at the case. 「It says Spider-Man.」

「It's a different Spider-Man.」

「They are all Spider-Man, Anna. He is a man who is also a spider. I went to the store. I found Spider-Man. I brought Spider-Man.」

Anna pressed her lips together. It didn't hold. her hands shot up to suppress a laugh. Too late, it still came out. It was helpless and genuine, the kind Liz could never fully armor herself against.

「Liz...」

「I don't want to hear it.」

「...you brought No Way Home...」

「I said I don't want to hear it.」

「At least it is the third part」

Anna was still laughing as she dropped onto the couch. Liz set the case down on the coffee table like it had personally disappointed her and looked at you with the expression of someone expecting to be the only reasonable person in the room.

「We are watching it anyway,」she said. 「It is still Spider-Man.」

Anna settled into the left side of the couch, her shoulder found yours the way it always had. It was easy, unhurried, like the week of relative silence had been a weather event that had simply passed. Liz stood for a moment longer. The right side of the couch was open. She looked at the space. Then she looked at the space on Anna's other side. It was smaller, but manageable.

「You said you'd try...」

「I know what I said, Anna.」

Liz sighed, then she sat down, beside you, not beside Anna, but beside you. A small gap was deliberately left between you two for now.

The title card came up. Anna said something about the cast. Liz said nothing.

After a minute of fidgeting and side glances, she reached over and lifted your hand from where it rested at your knee. She placed it on her thigh. Her own hand settled over it, flat and still. She kept her eyes on the screen during the whole procedure.

The movie ran its course. Anna commentated in the low, unhurried way she did when she was comfortable. A half-sentence here, a small noise of satisfaction there. Liz watched in silence, her body was still rigid and stiff. She obviously had opinions about the action sequences, but she kept them almost entirely to herself, except for one moment where she exhaled sharply through her nose and said nothing. Her hand did not move from yours. Her grip was firm, almost too firm.

The credits rolled. Liz remained quiet for a moment.

「Tobey's was better.」She finally broke the silence with a flat observation. She delivered it like a verdict that had been sitting in deliberation since the opening act.

Anna shot into an upright sitting position.

「That...」She turned to look at Liz fully, eyes bright and beaming. Her voice was a squeal of pure unadulterated joy. 「...is complete and utter bullshit.」

「It isn't. Tobey had weight. There were emotional stakes. This one is...」Liz gestured once at the screen. 「...very shiny.」

「Very shiny.」Anna repeated it slowly, appalled and delighted in equal measure. Then she turned to you, her hand finding your arm. 「Tell her. You have to tell her. Don't let her get away with this.」

The restaurant was her choice. Not somewhere they'd been before. That felt important to her. It needed to be new territory. A table by the window, warm light, the kind of place that existed to host exactly this situation without advertising it.

You arrived first. She walked in a few minutes later.

She had done something with her hair. It was down the way it usually was, but arranged differently. Her caramel layers set deliberately rather than left to settle on their own. The dress was one you hadn't seen before. A Warm-colored, orange sundress. She wore it the same way she wore everything: like she hadn't thought about it, which meant she had thought about it completely.

She spotted you and her expression did what it always did. Arrived a beat after her eyes.

「Sorry. Parking.」

She sat down, set her bag on the back of the chair in the specific way she had always set her bag on the back of a chair. 「The fish here is supposed to be excellent.」

The waiter came. Anna ordered without consulting the menu for more than thirty seconds. You had expected that.

For the first part of the evening, it was easy. Unnervingly so.

She asked about something you had mentioned to her two weeks ago, a thing she had remembered without being asked to remember. You answered. She listened attentive and fully aware of every subtext you ever spoke to her. You asked her something back. She answered. The rhythm between both of you was completely intact.

That was, you were beginning to understand, the strangeness of it.

「You're doing the thing,」she said, not unkindly, eyes on her water glass. 「Where you monitor yourself.」She looked up. 「You've been doing it since I sat down.」

She looked at her own hands for a moment.

「I am too, for what it's worth.」

She didn't wait for a response. She picked up her menu, though she didn't need it.

The food arrived. She had been right about the fish.

You talked the way you always talked. She made you laugh once over something genuinely stupid. It was a sentence she didn't finish correctly that she then committed to anyway out of stubbornness. You knew exactly what she had meant and finished it for her. She acknowledged it with the specific small nod that meant: yes, obviously. It was, for a while, entirely normal.

Then she reached for her wine glass and stopped.

Not a dramatic stop, just a half-second of stillness. Her hand completed the movement and she drank. But the pause had been there.

She set the glass down.

「We've done this a hundred times,」she said. It wasn't quite a question. She let it sit there a moment. 「Something like it, anyway.」She looked at the table. 「I know exactly what you'd order anywhere. I know the face you make when you've decided to let something go. I know what you're going to say when the check comes.」

She looked up.

「And I still don't know what this is.」

She said it the way she said most things, with a light, unhurried way, like she was noting something about the weather. But she held your gaze a beat past comfortable, and she didn't move to soften it.

「I am actually terrified. Because when I mess this up, I don't lose a partner... I lose you, my best friend.」

She was already there when you arrived. She was standing at the corner with the stillness of someone who had been there long enough to check her phone twice and decided against it both times.

She was in a dress, which was a totally new sight for you. Dark green, simple, fitted well to her frame in a way that wasn't incidental. She had a leather jacket on over it, zipped to the collar, and flat boots. The dress was visible. So was the effort to make it look like it wasn't a big deal.

She saw you coming and addressed it before you could.

「Anna picked it.」she said. 「Don't.」

They walked. She set the pace. Her longer strides were unhurried but covering ground. She had opinions about the neighborhood. The new construction at the end of the block was going to be a parking disaster. The coffee place on the corner had been better when it was a laundromat. She delivered these assessments the way she delivered most things: with the flat confidence of someone who had thought about it and was not currently interested in being disagreed with.

At some point, without looking at you, she said: 「I want to be clear that I don't think this is a good idea.」

She kept walking.

「Anna disagrees. She's usually right.」She took a deep breath. 「It's extremely inconvenient.」

It was, for a stretch, almost functional. The armor was on but she wasn't swinging. Not warm, because nothing with Liz was warm, but at least it was not hostile. She was trying, like she had promised. It was visible that she was trying, which was clearly not something she was pleased about.

Then there was the cat.

It was in one of the older trees lining the path. It was not impossibly high, but high enough. A small tabby, very committed to its situation and very unhappy about it. Liz stopped dead in her tracks. She assessed the tree for about two seconds.

Then she handed you her jacket.

「Hold this.」

She went up with the same efficiency she brought to everything physical. She was methodical, no wasted movement, no commentary. She was not thinking about the dress. It was completely obvious that she was not thinking about the dress at all. She reached the cat, tucked it firmly against her chest, and came back down.

She landed on the path with the cat secured in the crook of one arm. The specific satisfaction on her face was the most unguarded thing you had seen from her all evening, maybe even ever. It lasted about four seconds.

Her gaze dropped to her side.

A significant tear ran along the seam, from hip to mid-thigh. She looked at it. Then at you. Then back at it.

The cat purred. She appeared not to notice.

「Anna's going to ask me about the dress,」she said flatly. It was directed at the tear.

She paused and tried to stare the tare away.

「She picked it out.」

She said it with no particular inflection, which was how Liz said things she hadn't intended to say. She looked up from the hem. Her eyes found yours. The cat shifted in her arms and she adjusted her grip without looking down.

She didn't ask you anything. But she hadn't looked away.

「Anna is going to kill me. At least tell me you had fun on our... date. Maybe that will calm her down.」

The apartment smelled like paint. The renovation had been thorough. Clean walls, new flooring in the kitchen, a silicone seal around the bathtub that was still faintly visible if you looked. Everything was in its place, which meant someone had arranged it to look like nothing had changed.

Liz had done that. You could tell.

She opened the door before you knocked. She had heard you on the stairs, which in itself said something about the state of her evening.

「You found it.」

It wasn't a question. She stepped aside. Her posture was the correct posture, upright, arms loose, nothing held. Her eyes moved past your shoulder once before coming back.

The apartment was tidy, too tidy, like someone had been doing something with their hands to avoid thinking.

「Anna's in the kitchen.」Liz said, and then didn't follow it with anything.

She looked at you.

「She's been in there for forty minutes. The risotto had been finished twenty minutes ago.」

---

You found Anna at the stove with a wooden spoon in one hand and an expression she hadn't noticed she was wearing. It was the face she made in the car after the contractor's office, the one you could count on one hand, how often you had seen it.

She looked up when you came in.

「You're here.」The warmth arrived first. Then something underneath it that she didn't hide fast enough. 「I made too much. I always make too much. It's a problem I've had since I was twelve.」

She was talking at slightly the wrong speed. Too fast, always too fast when she was nervous.

「Liz thinks I make too much because I have anxiety. I think I make too much because portions are an estimate. These are different positions and we've agreed to disagree.」

She put the spoon down. Picked it back up. Set it on the rest.

「This is strange for me.」She said like she wasn't planning to say it, fast and then very still, like she was waiting to see where it landed. 「Being here. With you. Both of you.」A short breath. 「In my kitchen. Where I live.」

She looked at you for a moment.

「I've had the whole thing managed for years. Every version of it. Every angle.」She almost smiled. 「I have no angles left. That's new.」

---

Dinner happened with three people at the table. All paying too much attention and hiding it poorly. Anna sat across from Liz. You were at the end. The position made both of them equally addressable.

The risotto was genuinely excellent. Anna did not acknowledge the compliment directly, which meant she had been hoping for it.

Liz ate with the quiet focus of someone who had decided to do this thing and was going to do it correctly if it killed her. She refilled your glass without being asked. She just noticed it was low. This did not escape Anna.

The conversation moved through the renovations, the flooring, a neighbor who had complained about the noise during the work, a plant that had not survived the month. Anna did most of it. Liz contributed when asked and twice when not asked, which was, for Liz, a form of effort.

At some point Anna asked you something, and you answered, and when you finished Liz was looking at the table with a certain kind of unease.

You said her name.

Her eyes came up. The question behind them was the same one that had been there since the hallway.

「I'm fine.」She said it with no particular defensiveness. Then, quieter: 「I don't know what I'm doing.」The admission landed without drama. 「I've spent a month being very clear on what I thought about all of this. Now I have dinner in my own apartment and I don't know where to look.」

Anna said nothing. She was watching her wife.

Liz reached for her glass. Put it down without drinking.

「I told you I'd be a bitch about it.」She looked at you. 「I am trying not to be a bitch about it.」

She took a breath, shallow at first, then she forced it deeper.

「It is very difficult.」

---

After dinner the three of you were in the living room. The plates had been cleared. Liz had insisted on washing up and Anna had let her, which told you everything about how carefully Anna was watching the temperature of the room.

The couch had two obvious ends. Anna had taken one. Liz stood near the bookshelf with her arms loosely crossed, not quite at rest.

The evening was not over. Nobody had said it was over. Nobody had said anything about what came next.

Anna looked at you from the cushion. Her expression had lost the rehearsed quality from the kitchen. Whatever was underneath it now was smaller and more honest.

「You don't have to choose right now.」She said it carefully. Not without weight. 「Tonight can just be tonight.」

Liz said nothing from the bookshelf. But her arms weren't crossed anymore.

「We talked about the physical part of this...」Anna continued. 「I said I want it... Back in your apartment. And I also think I've been talking too much,」Anna said. She picked up her glass and didn't drink from it.

Then Liz pushed off the bookshelf. She came to the couch's far end. She left a deliberate space before sitting down. Both hands were on her knees. She looked at them.

「I've never been with a man,」she said. 「I've been very clear on that, for a long time.」

Lizz fell silent for a moment, visibly working on the next part.

「I've been thinking about it. The last few days. More than I ever intended to.」

She looked up. At you, not at Anna.

「I don't know what that means yet. But I wanted... No, I needed to say it out loud.」