A muffler shot finally roused Stacy from bed. It had to be almost three in the afternoon yet she’d been lying there the better part of twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling fan, thinking too much about nothing. Occasionally wondering what the warm body next to her was still doing there.

“What was that?” he said, as Stacy picked her shirt off the floor. She tried to think of his name. It began with a t.

“A violation of noise ordinances.”

Tim? Tom? No, those were old names. He was easily ten years her junior. She hadn’t asked for specifics. Tried to think of his profile. Had she even addressed him by name?

You a cop or something?”

“I’m a mom.” It came to her. How could she forget? “That’s all, Trayce. Just a mom.”

“Oh yeah.” He yawned. “What time is it?”

She glanced at the alarm clock. Her husband, Craig, had left around noon; Trayce had arrived around one. Craig would be on the lake another hour at least, unless Jimmy and Marcus got bored. Which they probably would. She wished she’d waited longer before having a second kid, so they didn’t grow impatient at the same time. Sometimes, she wished she’d never even had the first.

She grabbed her denim shorts and slipped them on. Trayce struggled out of bed, fumbling for his things. He moved languidly, as though he had all the time in the world. As though there was zero chance of her husband returning home. He’d seemed lethargic even in his pictures. She took a glance over her shoulder, one last admiration of his physique. How could someone so lazy be in such good shape?

Stacy instinctively felt her abdomen. She was a couple of pounds over where she wanted to be, but so what? Trayce hadn’t complained. The one before him—Todd, another t, which surely had to be a coincidence—hadn’t either. She thought maybe this was some sort of displaced guilt. She wondered what her therapist would say, if she could afford one. Or a marriage counselor, if she’d wanted one.

“I don’t suppose you have any beer?”

Exactly the kind of thing she would’ve asked at his age.

“It’s early, don’t you think?”

“Worked up a thirst.” She could hear his smile, and didn’t blame him. She was thirsty, too.

“Come on.”

In the kitchen, she grabbed two bottles of Miller Lite from the fridge and twisted off the caps.

Trayce took his and downed a third of it in one pull. He stifled a belch and said, “That was good.”

She nodded.

He took in the cramped kitchen, which opened onto the cluttered living room. Stacy had recently read several inspirational posts about how a person couldn’t be judged by the cleanliness of their house, and had taken it to heart. Not that Craig made much effort to clean up. Stacy had at least tried for a while. But the boys made the place a perpetual pigsty. Anyone who wanted to judge her for that could fuck all the way off.

Trayce took another swig and Stacy watched him. Good looking, in a vaguely trashy way she couldn’t quite define. As though he happened to be in his best physical phase, a unique moment in time where his sexual appeal was at its peak. Such a body, such a face, would not stay that way for much longer. He reminded her of Craig when they’d first met. He hadn’t earlier, and she didn’t enjoy the comparison. This wasn’t guilt; it was resignation. Maybe she did have a type. That would be her luck.

He sensed her staring at him and faced her. “So,” he said, “what do you do for a living?”

She considered lying, then said, “Purina. Production Manager.”

“You make dog food?”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“You don’t look like the factory type. No offense.”

She took a drink.

“How about you, Trayce?”

“How about what?”

“What do you do for a living?”

She thought, He’s unemployed, and he said, “I’m in between jobs. Worked at Walmart until two weeks ago. Showed up one day smelling like weed. Like I’m the only one. Bill just has it out for me, is all. Speaking of which, you don’t happen to…”

“I don’t.”

“Ah, well. I’ll hit up my guy on the way home.”

She gauged the amount of time they had by the beer left in his bottle. Should’ve said she didn’t have any. She needed to rest.

“Where’d you say your husband is?”

Where he always is. “He’s fishing.”

Before loading his gear and heading for the lake, Craig always asked permission. As if he were one of their children. She’d told him he didn’t have to, had even raised her voice to emphasize the point. But he still asked. She wondered what he’d do if she said no. Roll over like a puppy and beg? Throw a fit? Or, worst of all, nod and walk away?

“I used to fish when I was a kid,” Trayce said. “Never caught anything exciting, though. Guess I grew out of it.”

He didn’t look old enough to have outgrown anything.

“All my husband catches are bluegill. He throws them back.”

“Shame. They’re good eats.”

“Maybe one day he’ll bring one back with him.”

“You know how to clean a fish?”

She laughed. “Fuck no. It’d be different, is all.”

He cocked his head. “Like this?”

“This isn’t that different, Trayce.”

He took a minute to think about that as he finished his beer. By the time the bottle was empty, his eyes were still glazed, as though he knew he was supposed to have learned something. It was the most endearing he’d been the entire afternoon.

Finally, he said, “Well,” and looked around. She took the bottle from him and set it on the counter.

“Oh,” he said, then smiled. “Yeah. Well, I guess I should be…”

“Way you came in, Trayce.” She smiled to let him in on the joke. He laughed.

“Right. Well, later, or, you know, whatever.”

She watched him leave via the back door, taking the alley to his car. She didn’t really care if anyone saw him.

As she sat down in her third-hand La-Z-Boy, Stacy realized Trayce hadn’t used her name since the last message he’d sent her. No, not even that one; it’d been two days ago, when she was still making up her mind whether she wanted to do this again. She almost wished this angered her, or even disappointed her. Instead, she just felt empty. She glanced around at the discarded remnants of the family she wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted. Should she bother telling herself she wasn’t going to do this again? For now, she sipped her beer and watched her reflection in the blank TV screen. After a few minutes, she closed her eyes. Nothing looked different.

---

D.W. Davis (he/him) is a native of rural Illinois. His work has appeared in various online and print journals. You can find him at Facebook.com/DanielDavis05, @dan_davis86 on Twitter, and @dwdavis.bsky.social

---