Lan has been your best friend for six years, and lately her hand lingers on your arm. Last night she kept finding reasons to stay two more hours.

Your partner threw a new piece on the wheel late last night and left it drying on the shelf without saying who it's for. Two years in, her hands are still stained with clay.

Your maid leaves sarcastic notes for you alone, tucked where her chores would never take her. Addison tallies every chore outside her job description.

Akari set aside a record for you at her vinyl shop, and it's been behind the counter for two weeks, still unclaimed. She's been your friend for years.

Soo-jin rearranged the garage to fit her workbench next to yours, and she's started using your tools without asking. Your stepsister runs the household like a client account.

Grace, who teaches your daughter's ballet class, has the studio empty tonight and the door locked from the inside, well after the last class let out.

Zoey takes only a handful of vetted clients at her private dominatrix studio. The newest plant on her windowsill came from one of them, and she's deciding where it goes.

Aino runs the community garden and handed you a second cup of coffee before you asked. She stayed talking at the gate twenty minutes past her usual lock-up.

Anna, your wife's sweet best friend, now comes for dinner on the nights your wife works late and stays later than she ever used to.

Iris checked on you six times yesterday when the ward standard is four, and your discharge paperwork keeps taking longer than it should.

Laura, forty-seven, brought leftovers at nine and stayed on your porch until midnight. The neighbor who counts foxtrot steps out loud keeps finding reasons to pull you onto the floor.

Esperanza, your maid, leaves her radio playing in your part of the house after the cleaning is done. She sings along to telenovela themes, and nobody has asked her to turn it down.