The first miles back toward Danbury passed on a dull autopilot. He kept the car in its lane through slushy curves and tried to hold his thoughts to the road. The job wasn't just a job. It was a stop to the freefall. A guaranteed paycheck. A legitimate contribution to the house. A base of operations, the thing he'd told himself he was driving toward when he left the West. Walking away meant returning to the grind of independent sales, chasing better sourcing and thinner margins, praying the car and his spirit held out long enough to collect the next commission.
A semi roared by in the opposite lane and threw a wave of gray, salt-heavy slush across the windshield. Quinn went blind. His hands locked on the wheel until his knuckles whitened. The wipers dragged once, then again, smearing the filth into an opaque blur before clearing a jagged arc of visibility. When the view returned, the stress crack in the glass caught the last light with a sharp, mocking glint. It had grown since the final stretch of the cross-country drive. It ran across the laminate like lightning moving in slow motion, measuring out the remaining time he could call his life his own. Now it was a defect you could see from the sidewalk. An invitation for a bored traffic cop to pull him over and begin the kind of questioning he could not afford to lose.
He wasn't hoping for the job. He was pricing it. He weighed what he would have to give up against what it offered, and the math held steady in the gray corridor of highway. The position ended the freefall and began the slow work of stabilization. With a paycheck he could replace the car. He could buy something that wasn't vibrating apart under the Connecticut winter, something that didn't turn weather into a daily threat. Without the gallery he would need a miraculous spring. He would have to build a client network from nothing with an efficiency that left no room for wasted miles, not with an engine already counting down its final days.
The Danbury exit sign surfaced through the gray haze and snapped into focus, clean enough to bring a conflicted surge of relief and tension into Quinn's chest. In the last few blocks the duplex street returned, familiar now and somehow smaller than it had been that morning, tighter, as if the town had drawn in while he was gone. He turned into the driveway and found his path obstructed. The landlord and his wife were mid-unload, trunk yawning open, grocery bags scattered across the asphalt like small white bunkers. The front door to their half stood ajar, a gash of yellow light against the fading afternoon.
The Rottweiler held still on a patch of dead grass, its gaze locked on Quinn's car with an attention that didn't soften into recognition. The back space was blocked again, the third time that week. Quinn slowed and stopped short of the choke point, reading the driveway the way he read winter streets. There was no way through without asking them to move, without making it a conversation. He chose the front instead, the same spot he'd used with the cruiser. The rear end slid a sickening half inch on invisible ice before the tires caught. He stopped and killed the engine. Silence arrived at once. The metal ticked as it cooled, and the hard-won heat of the cabin began to drain away into the Connecticut air.
The professional charge from the gallery interview still moved through him, thinner now under the duplex's gravity. Even without an offer, the mere possibility of another life had scrubbed some of the salt and grit from his thoughts. He stepped out into the bite of the cold and gave a quick, performative wave in the dog's direction, as if politeness might count for something. The landlord and his wife stayed inside their doorway light, their bodies half-turned, busy and unhurried. Quinn moved fast toward the front door. He slipped inside and closed it with calculated softness. In the dark foyer he paused to catch his breath. The house's silence settled over him like a coat, familiar and heavy.
Riley was perched by the front window, framed in the cold blue light that filtered through the glass. She looked up with a familiar, knowing grin, as if she'd already decoded the day from the way he carried it. She called him by his full name, Quinlan, in that playful, melodic tone she used when she wanted to make something feel lighter than it was. She asked if he was okay.
Quinn didn't reach for his sales armor. He met her gaze with blunt, exhausted honesty. Things were not particularly fine. He thanked her anyway, the words hollow as they left his mouth.
A heavy knock hit the front door. Quinn went rigid. His pulse kicked hard against his ribs in the sudden silence, and the earlier knocks from the common wall returned to him, the warning made physical. The landlord was on the other side of the oak. Quinn stood still, unready for a confrontation.
Riley showed none of his alarm. She rose with an unbothered ease and moved toward the entrance. A soft giggle started in her throat before her hand even found the latch.
The landlord stood in the doorway, bulky in silhouette, heavy plastic grocery bags hooked into the crooks of both arms like weights. He asked, in a voice that was calm and ordinary, for someone to move the car. There was no heat in it. None of the unstable energy Quinn had carried all afternoon existed in the man's tone.
Riley didn't hesitate. She smiled bright and effortless and said she'd take care of it. Then she turned her head back toward Quinn. He was half-hidden behind the door, still in the shadow of the foyer. Her grin widened as she called his name, a command delivered as a joke.
Move your car.
Quinn stepped out from behind the door's protection. He kept his eyes down as he passed the landlord at the threshold, careful not to meet his gaze. Cold air bit at his face. He walked with a stiff, self-conscious gait toward the driveway. A few hours ago he'd been an applicant being evaluated behind glass. Here he was only a guest, corrected in a voice so reasonable it left him nowhere to push back.
Halfway to the driver's door, Quinn stopped on the frozen pavement. If he let it sit, the silence would fill up with its own story. He turned back.
The landlord stood in the narrow passage between the car and the front steps, grocery bags still hooked into the crooks of his elbows. Quinn approached until there was no way to pretend this was a casual overlap. The man looked down at him with a small, puzzled crease in his face, as if trying to place what he was being asked to do. His wife hovered just behind him, quiet, curious. Off to the side, the Rottweiler held low on the lawn, a dark shape with patient eyes fixed on them. The cold seemed to thin, making every breath feel counted.
Quinn made himself speak. His breath came out in white. He apologized for the altered photo on the refrigerator. He said it was him. He took full responsibility for turning the sweatshirt logo into something crude. It had been immature. It had been stupid. It hadn't come from malice or homophobia. It was a lapse, a bad joke that shouldn't have been made in a man's home. He stood in the slush and waited for a response to meet him halfway, for anything that would close the distance he'd opened.
Riley's voice cut through the crack of the front door. Loud, urgent, pitched to carry. She called for Darren and told him to get to the front window, right now. The command turned the driveway into a stage. Quinn's apology, salt-stained and private until that second, became a scene for the roommates behind the glass.
The landlord's face didn't change. It held a seasoned indifference that refused to reward the moment with even a frown. No mercy. No irritation. No nod that might pass for forgiveness. His wife broke the pause. She said, in a flat, almost clinical tone, that it was obvious her husband wasn't gay. The joke had not landed. Quinn's apology was an explanation nobody had asked for.
The landlord shifted the plastic loops of the grocery bags higher on his forearms. The weight tightened his jaw. He still didn't address what Quinn had said. He only stated, calmly, that they needed to get the melting supplies inside. Quinn had to move. He had to give them the space to pass.
Quinn retreated to the edge of the shoveled path and offered a last, redundant apology as he yielded the narrow right-of-way. They went by without looking at him. Their silence did the work of exclusion. As they reached the trunk, the landlord made a short sound in his throat, not a word so much as a signal. The Rottweiler rose from the dead grass and moved closer, heavy and quiet. The couple returned to unloading, their motions steady, unhurried, as if Quinn had been nothing more than an interruption in the work.
Across the driveway, Riley and Darren were framed in the front window, pale faces against the interior light, watching the aftermath of Quinn's humiliation like spectators in a darkened theater.
Quinn shifted into reverse and eased out onto the street's slush-choked narrowness. He let the engine idle at the curb and waited for a signal that didn't come. The landlord kept moving between trunk and doorway as if Quinn weren't there, and the driveway remained either a temporary inconvenience or a claim being made in real time.
A flicker of yellow appeared in the rearview mirror. It pulsed, then steadied. Out of the gray distance a salt-encrusted mass took shape, the snowplow coming fast, blade angled like a serrated wing. Its low rumble traveled through Quinn's seat and into his hands on the wheel.
If he stayed where he was, the plow would pin him to the curb under a fresh berm of heavy slush. He pulled forward and backed into the driveway he had just vacated. The landlord stopped mid-stride. His hands lifted in a brief flare of confusion and irritation. He demanded to know what Quinn was doing.
Quinn raised his own hands, helpless. No explanation would sound like anything but weakness. He was no longer the pilot of his day. He was reacting, taking the next available opening.
The plow roared past the mouth of the driveway and the steel blade scraped the asphalt with a sound that made everything else feel small. The machine shoved a moving wall of slush along the curb and lumbered on. The point had been made without a word.
Quinn backed out again and took the street for a second time. The landlord finished his unloading, climbed into his own vehicle, and pulled away. Their paths crossed at the end of the drive. Quinn offered an awkward, reflexive wave. It went unanswered.
When the car was gone, the driveway opened to him like a narrow, salt-stained sanctuary. He guided his car into the designated back space and killed the engine. The silence inside the cabin landed with the weight of a blow.