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His toothpaste goes into the bag on the counter. So does his deodorant. I take the small bottle of cologne from the medicine cabinet, smell it, and add that too.

The cabinet contains aspirin, cold medicine, allergy medication, a box of bandages, and nothing remotely interesting.

His bedroom is better. The bed is made. His clothes are arranged as neatly as I expected.

I take the underwear and socks first, then the shirts softened by repeated washing rather than the ones that still look new. The faded T-shirt at the bottom of one drawer comes with me.

So do two sweaters I recognize.

I saw him wear the charcoal one through the window of an Italian restaurant while an older woman sat across from him. Probably safe.

Last night I had to dress him from the clothes I’d bought by guessing sizes from a distance. Now I can touch what he actually wears. I can see which shirts have softened at the cuffs and which trousers have been cleaned often enough to fade along the seams.

I find a dark green sweater pushed behind the others and pull it free. “Oh, that’s mine.” I put it in the bag.

By the time I reach his nightstand, I’m enjoying myself.

There are two books stacked beside the bed. One has a receipt tucked halfway through it as a bookmark. The other is full of pencil marks.

I sit on the edge of his bed and open it.

Oliver writes in books. Not carefully, either. There are sentences underlined hard enough to score the paper, questions crowded into the margins and, beside one particularly long paragraph, a single irritated No.

“You argue with books.”

I take that one. The other stays.

I open the nightstand drawer and find glasses. These have thinner frames and a small scratch near one hinge. I put them on.

The room immediately becomes unusable.

I take them off again and look through the lenses toward the mirror across from his bed. “Jesus, Oliver.”

They go in the bag. A charger follows. Then the watch lying beside the lamp. I leave the loose change and receipts, take a pen because I’ve watched him chew the end of that exact one through two faculty meetings, and pause when I notice a photograph half hidden beneath a stack of papers. It’s only his parents. I put it back.

I’m deciding whether to check his kitchen before his desk when someone knocks on the front door.

I stop.

Three seconds pass. Another knock.

Then a woman’s voice comes through the door. “Nate?”

I don’t move.

“Nate, it’s Juney.”

My hand tightens around the strap of Oliver’s bag.

“You missed dinner,” she says.

I set the bag down and cross the apartment quietly. Oliver’s car is still at the university because he ruined that part of my plan. I don’t know how long it’ll take someone at the university to notice he hasn’t shown up. Apparently it took this woman less than a day.

“Nate?”

I stop at the door and lean toward the peephole. She’s pretty. Of course she fucking is.

She looks younger than Oliver by at least ten years, with dark hair pulled into a loose knot and a coat left open over a blue dress. Little silver hoops hang from her ears. She’s holding her phone in one hand and a white bakery box in the other.