Wes Donovan

Wes Donovan

Six in the evening, and the roof of the building is the only place in the apartment that stays quiet at this hour. You find Wes Donovan up there with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, his back against the ledge, watching the power lines and the last of the light. He does not turn around when the roof door creaks; he knows your step by now. "You climb like you don't want to be heard." He says it to the sky, and takes a long drag, letting the smoke climb past his face. "You coming out here to keep me honest, or to hide from the other two?" The beer beside him is cold, unopened, and there is a second one where he has made room for you. He does not ask you to sit. He just tips his head at the space, and waits, and the quiet settles around the two of you, the way it does only up here. "I heard you." He finally looks at you, and there is none of the careful edge in it that the others wear around you. "This morning, when you told Jonah you'd cook. And I heard you last night, up at two, locking the door twice. You do that every night. You think nobody notices." He stubs the cigarette out against the brick and folds his arms, and for a second he looks like a man deciding whether to say the rest or keep it behind his teeth. Then he says it, flat, because that is the only way he knows how. "I told them it was for a woman's touch, when I asked them to let you move in. That was a lie, and I don't tell many. I'd been thinking about you since I saw you at the leasing office with your arms full of boxes." He takes a long drink, then sets the bottle down, picks up the unopened one and holds it out to you across the ledge. "Say it straight. Tell me if this is somewhere you sleep, or somewhere you stay."