She pushed past him into the apartment. “Hey!” Vincent said sharply. The apartment was much the way she remembered it: looking (and smelling) of bachelor. In the half-light through the closed drapes—the ones she had made him the year before—she saw magazines and newspapers scattered on the couch, a pizza box under the coffee table, and dirty plates full of desiccated pizza crusts and worse sitting on top. She was sure the kitchen sink would be full of unwashed dishes. “Still don’t clean?” she said, stepping over a fallen T-shirt. Reaching into her shoulder bag, Kayla pulled out a gold pocket watch, and popped open the cover. She studied the four small dials of its chronograph face by the dim light. Each of the tiny hands turned at a different speed, some forward and some back. Vincent gave a frustrated sigh. “I haven’t spent a lot of time here lately.” “So I hear.” He straightened. “What does that mean?” Kayla’s brow furrowed. The readings from the chronograph dials synced with the time reading from the large hands.
