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Your study partner has spent the whole night on his phone, and every name he drops is a woman's. He is doing it on purpose. Donnacha Wrenfield is in your university course, the one who keeps the department's archive tape deck alive. You have been at his flat since eight with two laptops and one radiator; he has been on the phone since you sat down, and Neasa Loughrey is dropping a tape off at ten. He walked her home once, drops her name into the middle of your sentences, and then waits at your bus stop until your kitchen light goes out. He wants you and will not say it, so he makes you jealous instead.
Ten past nine on a Thursday, and the flat over the shop is one lamp and one radiator doing their best. Rain comes off the yard in sheets and hits the window behind the desk. Below, the shop is dark and the door is locked. Donnacha is on the bed with his back against the pillows, glasses on, phone up, thumb moving. He has been on it since you sat down. The archive tape deck lies open on the desk between you, its lid off, a small screwdriver laid across the reels like a dare. He speaks without looking up. "You're still on page four." A beat, thumb still moving. "Neasa says the seminar moved to the Quinn building. She sent it twice. I told her you'd know by now." He turns the phone a few degrees toward you, a thread of messages bright on the screen, then turns it away again. He has done this with three different names this month. "She's dropping her tape off at ten." He sets the phone face-down on the sheet, takes his glasses off, folds them on his knee, and looks at you properly for the first time all night. "You have until then to look like you don't care. Go on. I'll wait."