A few nights later the restless energy of the house rose again. Dinner dissolved into a succession of drinks. Darren finally retreated to bed, leaving Quinn and Riley to carry the remainder of the evening between them. Riley refused to let it end. She wanted a nightcap. Quinn let himself be talked into it and took the wheel, the car still wearing its California plates like a bright tag.
Danbury's streets were unfamiliar and mean, coated in wet slush that had begun to freeze in place. Every turn felt like a negotiation with the pavement. Snow flurries drifted through the headlight glare. He missed a critical turn and suddenly found himself facing the wrong direction on a narrow one-way. He stopped, tried to back out, and his rearview mirrors filled with strobing red and blue.
Riley stayed buzzed and unbothered, bright and talkative in the wash of the lights. Adrenaline went cold in Quinn's chest. The alcohol on his breath turned sharp and undeniable.
When the officer reached his window, Quinn chose the version of himself that had paid his bills. He admitted the mistake with practiced humility. He was new in town. He'd missed the signage. He offered a small, self-deprecating joke about the street being a tourist trap and apologized without argument. They lived a few blocks away. The officer did not escalate. He looked past Quinn to confirm Riley was there of her own volition, then let his eyes travel to the neatly packed gallery inventory in the back seat.
The officer didn't escalate. No ticket. No lecture. He told them to go home, and then he added that he would follow to make sure they made it there safely. Or to verify the story, Quinn thought. In that moment the goal wasn't the nightcap anymore. The goal was getting back to the duplex clean.
Quinn pulled into the driveway and parked at the front instead of easing back into his usual space. He wanted the cruiser to see them arrive without fumbling, to watch two quiet figures step out and go inside like they belonged there. When he killed the engine, the car became a dark capsule. He and Riley were silhouettes to the officer idling at the curb, his presence held in the side mirror's glare. Quinn leaned toward her and whispered for her to keep it down so they wouldn't wake the duplex. He called her buzzy bee, the nickname light and a little strained, like he could smooth the moment by naming it.
Riley answered with a sudden, bright excitement. She told him he'd handled it perfectly, then slid across the seat and kissed him square on the mouth. It was not a quick, joking peck. It held long enough to make him go still. In the side mirror the police spotlight flared, bleaching the glass, making the car feel exposed. When she finally pulled away she stayed close, studying his mouth as if checking her work, then reached up and wiped his lip with her thumb. The cherry chapstick was on him now. She cleaned the smudge with quick, practical care until she seemed satisfied.
Quinn wanted the house submerged in sleep. As soon as he stepped inside, the steady opening and closing of kitchen cabinets told him Darren was still awake. Darren looked up when Quinn entered, his expression unreadable in the harsh overhead light. He said he'd heard they'd had a scare with the police. Quinn didn't answer right away. The scent of cherries clung to him, and the strobing memory of the spotlight kept replaying in his head. Riley drifted through the hallway toward the stairs, offering a casual goodnight before disappearing upstairs. The two men remained in the kitchen, alone under the bright light, with the quiet of the duplex pressed close around them.
The following morning, Quinn waited for a pocket of privacy. Darren stood at the counter drying a glass with a worn dish towel, slow and methodical, as if the repetition kept him steady. Quinn said he wanted to clear the air about last night. Darren didn't look up. He made a small sound of assent, a permission to proceed.
Quinn told him about the wrong turn, the one-way street, the cruiser that followed them back to the duplex. He paused, watching for a reaction, but Darren only nodded once, as if Quinn were confirming something he had already assumed. The towel squeaked against the wet glass. Darren kept moving.
Quinn made himself say the harder part. In the driveway, under the spotlight, Riley had kissed him. He insisted it had been sudden and unprompted. He had not encouraged it. He had not let it go further. The refrigerator hummed into the space where Darren might have spoken.
Darren set the glass down with a deliberate click and finally looked at him. Riley had already told him, he said. His voice dropped into a calm, cold authority. Quinn was lucky. They should make a point of not letting that happen again.
The sentence left a dangerous openness behind it, a vacuum where an apology or a defense might have tried to live. Quinn had the instinct not to test what the moment could bear. He said he understood. Darren gave a short, dismissive nod and returned to the chores, letting the tension dissolve back into the routine of the kitchen.
Quinn didn't ask what, exactly, the warning covered. He left the ambiguity untouched. It could have been the drinking, the wrong turn, the kiss, or the messy combination of all three. He had traveled three thousand miles for this shelter. He wasn't going to risk it by insisting on precision.
In the wake of the kitchen confrontation, a brittle normalcy returned. Darren stayed present and engaged. He refused the easy drama of brooding silence, yet he never revisited the kiss or offered the smallest reassurance that anything between them was intact. With no clarity to lean on, Quinn began to read the house the way he used to read customers. He listened for shifts in Darren's tone, measured the timing of his answers, and filled the sudden silences with meaning. Dark significance seeped into ordinary moments. He looked for the first crack in the foundation before the floor could give.
Riley moved through the days with practiced indifference, as if the driveway had never happened. Then her behavior began to fracture into a pattern Quinn couldn't predict. One minute she lingered near him with a flirty ease, the next she turned sharp, dismissive, as if he'd crossed a line he couldn't see. The changes arrived without warning and without rhythm. Quinn couldn't tell whether she resented his confession to Darren, whether she was instructing him to forget it, or whether the kiss had become unfinished business she could touch whenever she wanted. It sat between them like exposed wire.
The empty space on the refrigerator stayed in Quinn's line of sight, a blank square where the landlord's photo had been. The landlord himself remained on the other side of the duplex, close enough to hear, distant enough to remain unanswerable. Quinn's attention narrowed to the building's soundscape. He tracked the muffled thud of footsteps through the common wall, the heavy click of doors, the small routines of mail delivery and trash bins dragged to the curb. Each detail felt like a fragment of evidence. He arranged them into stories of consequence, rehearsing punishments that had not yet arrived.