Quinn made the long walk back from the driveway, shoes crunching through fresh salt and grit. Riley and Darren were still at the front window. They held their positions like judges behind glass. Darren stood just behind Riley's shoulder, his silhouette dark against the interior light. He shook his head slowly, methodically, the motion weary and disappointed.
They had seen all of it. The stuttered apology in the slush. The confusion at the snowplow's approach. The second retreat into the driveway, then back out again, the final shuffle for space. What Quinn had tried to keep private had been played in full view. A small performance staged in exhaust and winter light.
The latch clicked shut behind him. Riley let out a sharp, theatrical gasp and crossed the hardwood before he could shake the cold from his shoulders. She reached him with a warmth that felt too quick to be comfort and wrapped him in a tight embrace. The contact cut off any explanation. Over the curve of her shoulder, Quinn saw Darren near the couch, his expression unchanged, the head shake continuing as if the scene outside were still running.
Riley held the hug past the point of comfort. Her weight stayed on him, inescapable. She leaned in and spoke into his ear, her breath warm against the shell of it. Her voice was terrifyingly casual, as if she were sharing a small joke between conspirators. They were all being evicted. Quinn's eyes widened in the dim light and his body locked, rigid, as if the sentence had pinned him in place. For a moment he couldn't find his breath. The only shelter he'd been living on collapsed at once, and he felt it go.
Riley pulled back. She pressed a slow, deliberate kiss against his cheek and left the waxy trace of her cherry chapstick there. She didn't wipe it this time. She held him at arm's length for a beat, as if presenting her work, then her eyes flicked once toward the living room before she smiled and slipped out of his rigid arms. She disappeared into the kitchen on light, rhythmic footsteps.
Quinn stood alone in the foyer shadow. The cloying scent of cherries hung in the air, mingling with the metallic smell of winter he'd carried inside.
Darren exhaled. The sound whistled in the quiet room. Quinn's panic sat in plain view. Darren spoke carefully. It wasn't unkind, but it carried the weight of a technical correction. Riley was being dramatic. This wasn't a formal eviction with a sheriff at the door. It was a non-renewal notice delivered that morning. He leaned back, eyes steady, as if the distinction should have been enough.
"This place doesn't work for what we're trying to build," he said.
Then the resentment surfaced, sharpened by a month of small humiliations. The landlord's fixation on volume. The metronomic knocking on the common wall, those blunt thuds that cut rehearsals and late-night talk in half. The driveway choreography, the instructions about where to park, the unspoken accounting of how much silence they owed. Darren was done shuffling his car like a chess piece on someone else's board. He shook his head, decisive. They deserved a sanctuary without limits. A home without a kill-switch on the other side of the drywall, without the petty oversight of a man who could appear at any hour with groceries in his arms and rules in his mouth.
Riley came back into the living room too fast, a streak of manic energy with three beers slicked in condensation. She carried two openly and pinned the third under her arm like a prize. She moved with barroom competence, handing one to Darren and pressing another into Quinn's rigid palm before he could refuse. She popped the cap off her own with a sharp metallic snap and let out a bright, jagged laugh, as if laughter could convert consequence into entertainment. The landlord had stolen their photo. That petty theft, in her telling, justified everything.
She lifted her bottle into the dim light and toasted Quinn for getting them evicted. The irony cut clean. Quinn didn't answer. She clinked her bottle against his and the ring was crisp and final, the sound of a decision being closed. She took a long pull, unapologetic, her throat working in a steady rhythm, and drank as if home, security, and whatever came next could be swallowed down and set aside.
Quinn raised his bottle and drank because the alternative was standing there sober and alone inside the wreck. Riley dropped onto the sagging couch hard enough to send foam over the rim. She caught the spill with her mouth before it could stain the upholstery, quick as an animal, and laughed at herself. Quinn stayed standing in the center of the room, already picturing his life being packed into boxes he hadn't bought yet.
Darren mentioned the call. Steve wanted Quinn for the position at the Newtown gallery. The news settled in Quinn's stomach with a leaden weight, not relief so much as constraint. The tether snapped into place. He was no longer a free agent on the road. He was an employee, the solitary steward of a one-man operation in the sterile quiet of a nearly empty shopping plaza. The paycheck was real. It was a salvage line thrown to a ship already taking on water.
Darren reached behind the couch as if he were grabbing a remote. "And since I got you the job," he said, "you have to wear the new uniform." He brought his hand back holding a sweatshirt and let it hang a moment in the low light. GAP printed across the chest in bold black letters, the same blunt authority as the landlord's. Then Quinn saw the alteration. The P had been stitched into a Y, the thread replacing ink. The joke didn't land as humor. It landed as a blow.
Quinn looked from the shirt to Riley's gleaming eyes, then to Darren. Darren watched him with an easy, fraternal warmth, as if this were generosity, not punishment. The logo wasn't presented as a threat. It was offered as inclusion. Proof that the driveway apology had been unnecessary, that in this house the mistake was not a problem to correct but a thing to keep alive. Wearing it was the price of staying. A recurring punchline that would be brought out again and again, at parties, at rehearsals, whenever the night needed a target.
Riley let out a jagged, triumphant howl. Her face flushed with the pride of authorship. The stitch-work on the Y was neat and intentional, careful enough to last, the physical form of the mockery she'd been carrying since the photo first appeared on the fridge. Quinn didn't move. He stared at the garment and felt the available responses narrow. Anger would make him ungrateful. Laughter would make him complicit. Silence would make him guilty. The thin walls seemed to vibrate with their amusement as it filled the room. This was not a home. It was an arena, and he could feel the designation settle on him, precise and final.
Quinn took the sweatshirt. The fabric was heavy and warm, carrying heat from the dryer or from the couch cushions, and for a moment that warmth felt like permission. He let out a short, dry laugh and felt the tension in his shoulders loosen. He was the guy in the altered uniform. Not the sharp rep Steve had measured behind glass, not the careful neighbor the landlord had demanded in the driveway. Just Quinn, standing in a duplex that was already half gone.
He waited for the laughter to thin, then asked what the timeline actually was. When did the non-renewal turn into a lock and a door he couldn't open. Riley answered immediately, shouting, "Next week!" with a sharp, ecstatic delight, as if impending homelessness were the start of a spontaneous trip. The words hung in the room like frost. Darren didn't look away. His gaze stayed steady, corrective. He said they had a few weeks to settle things. Not next week. A few. The two of them were negotiating reality in real time. Riley offered chaos as honesty. Darren offered a measured projection. Quinn stood between them, holding the sweatshirt, feeling the distance widen.