Adam woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon. He lay in bed, hiding his face from the sun. It was sweet of her, but a part of him wished she had just tiptoed out in shame. Now he would have to make conversation, be on point. He never remembered his parents conversing over a meal. His mother would have spent the allotted family time fussing over Adam and his brother while his father read the paper or watched TV. It didn’t even make sense to eat and talk. Orifices were not for multitasking. Finally, his stomach got the best of him and in his boxers and slippers, Adam wandered out to the kitchen to find Teagan sitting at his table reading the paper with a big plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns smothered in ketchup. He watched her take a big gulp of Gatorade before he cleared his throat. She looked up slowly, marking her place on the page with a pen before she answered.

            “Good morning, I woke up early and walked to the store. I felt like I owed you breakfast at least,” she said and rose to fix him a plate. Adam was suddenly touched and smiled.

            “You’ll have to tell me your secret because I didn’t drink nearly as much as you, and I feel like ****.”

            “I feel like ****, but I always feel like ****. I only wallow in it when there’s no one else around, for the most part.” She set a plate in front of Adam and smiled. She had a great smile. Her hair was up in an untidy bun, a few strands had worked loose and were hanging in her face.

            “Do you ever wear your hair down?” Adam asked.

            “Only when I don’t want people to know I’m a loser,” she laughed and smiled again, “did you get enough?” Adam nodded with a mouthful of food.

            “How drunk were you when you got that tattoo?”

            “I don’t remember.” She handed Adam the half of the paper she had already read. He could not remember a time he had sat in comfortable silence with a woman and wondered how long it would last. He killed his own moment, shifted in his seat waiting for the end of the paper, the end of the meal. Waited for the inevitable end of this silence when someone would have to say something. He pictured a Hallmark movie dishwashing scene where she ended up with soap suds on her nose and nearly lost his breakfast. Adam glanced up at Teagan, still engrossed in the Times. She was resting her chin on her hand, there was a tattoo on her wrist that said Memento Mori. She wasn’t a Hallmark kind of girl. But she didn’t strike him as the Carpe Diem kind either. Remember you will die, no matter what you do, no matter how spontaneous you are, you will die. And then what? Then she smiled at something she had read. A horn honked outside and she raised her head.

            “****, that’s my cab. I didn’t realize it was so late.” She stood and moved to the door.

            “You’re leaving?”

            “I’m sorry, I was going to help clean up, but I really have to go.”

            “Can I call you later?”

            “Sure,” she wrote her number on the corner of the Times and then threw her arms around Adam for a hug. He held her tightly. Her skin smelled good. She kissed his cheek.