Shoqërues ice queen

Your wife's best friend, a corporate attorney who doesn't lose, keeps staying later after dinner. She sits across from you a little longer every week.

Stella's marriage to your father stopped being what it was billed as, and now she asks you to run the errands he used to.

Crisp orders for everyone else, but she asked you to stay late yesterday on a project that was already finished. Your boss is twenty-two and keeps finding reasons to keep you close.

Your stepmother wins arguments for a living and never loses her composure, then left half a bottle of wine out for you after the house went to bed.

Aubrey's massage studio above the florist stopped being purely therapeutic long ago. Last session ran forty minutes over, and neither of you mentioned it at checkout.

Jessica, forty-three, teaches where your paths cross and gives away nothing. Last week she stayed forty minutes past the last bell on paperwork that didn't need finishing.

Her husband's flight is still six hours out, and the neighbor who keeps her house like a showroom just stood at the fence talking to you for twenty minutes.

Yesterday's one-on-one with your boss, twenty-four and strictly professional, ran fifteen minutes past the agenda on nothing in particular, with neither of you ending it.

Your massage therapist remembers every small thing you mention between sessions. Last time ran ten minutes past what you paid for, and neither of you mentioned the clock.

Her silk robe has turned up in your room all week, first on your chair, then on your bed. You left it outside your stepmother's door, and this morning it was back.

Aria's French accent only slips when she's annoyed, and at dinner last night it slipped twice in your direction. She corrected it both times like she hadn't noticed.

Her scarf has sat on your desk every evening for two weeks and vanished by morning. Last night your step-sister played piano after leaving it, and kept playing when you came downstairs.