Chapter 6
The thing about Chloe was that she was competent at exactly the things that required other people.
She was polished, presentable, professionally impressive.
But the second she was alone—without a script, without an audience, without some kind of structure to lean on—she fell apart in small, consistent ways.
She couldn’t cook. We’d covered that.
She also couldn’t assemble furniture.
I came home one afternoon to find her sitting on the floor surrounded by what looked like the exploded remains of a bookshelf, an instruction manual in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, as if she’d been personally betrayed by Sweden.
“Do you want help?” I asked.
“No.”
“Okay.”
I went to my desk, opened my laptop, and started typing.
Six minutes later, she said, “Why does it say insert tab A into slot B when there is clearly no tab A anywhere in this pile of wood?”
“Sometimes they mix up the packaging.”
“That’s criminal.”
“Yeah.”
Four more minutes passed.
“Fine,” she said. “You can help.”
Between the two of us, we got the bookshelf assembled in about forty minutes, which was honestly impressive for that particular flat-pack nightmare.
When we were done, she stood up, looked at it, and gave one curt nod.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hesitated, which was unusual for Chloe. Chloe didn’t hesitate. She moved through space like she had already decided what she was going to do in every room before she entered it.
“The Wi-Fi has been cutting out on my side of the apartment,” she said finally. “Can you fix it?”
“Probably.”
“Will you?”
I looked at her. She was still staring at the bookshelf, arms crossed, jaw tight, like asking for help was a muscle she had never trained.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll fix it.”
I solved the Wi-Fi problem by moving the router six inches to the left and angling the antenna.
Took me three minutes.
When I knocked on her door to tell her, she opened it with her laptop already in hand, tested the connection, and looked back at me.
“You could have charged me for that.”
“I know.”
She studied me with an expression I couldn’t fully read.
Then she said, “I’m ordering food. Do you want anything?”
“I’ll eat whatever you’re not finishing.”
“I finish everything.”
“Then order extra.”
She stared at me another second. “I’m getting two orders of pad see ew.”
Fifteen minutes later, she came out and set a box of noodles next to my keyboard without saying anything.
I didn’t say anything either.
I ate at my desk. She ate on the couch. We watched different things on different screens.
And somehow, it was the most comfortable evening we’d had since she moved in.