Bruce recognized the note for the blow off that it was, but walked around campus for another two hours looking for Liza. It wasn’t until she didn’t answer his phone calls that he gave up and went home. She got like this sometimes. He thought he understood. It was like him living at the underpass, only she came home at night.

Something was different this time, maybe because he knew that the last place she’d been was his office. He had a sick feeling. It wasn’t lost on him that he’d come close to taking off on her not long ago. Bruce lay in bed thinking and listening. Michael was coughing up a lung across the hall, so he didn’t hear her when she came home.

He pretended to be asleep when she slid into bed next to him a while later.  It was almost midnight.  Liza was still for a couple of minutes, then sighed and moved closer. She wrapped her arm around his waist and laid her head on his chest. Her hair exuded the smell of cigarettes the way Michael’s pores exuded the smell of alcohol. Bruce sighed and covered her hand with his.