I sleep under Ava’s arm, curled up next to her. Penny and Bayan and Sloan sleep on the couch with the dogs, and Nua and Shiv are both in the bed with me and Ava when I wake up.

The sun comes in in shafts through gaps in the curtains, the heavy red curtains that face the beach, the front of the house where the sun is rising. I close my eyes and concentrate, and I can hear Ava breathing slow next to me and some birds chirping, and the waves in the distance, crashing into the shore. I didn’t know until now that I missed it.

Sloan is the first awake, and I know because Chloe picks up her head and whines when she shifts on the couch. I can hear her whisper to her, “Shh,” and I pull the blanket over my head a little bit. I don’t know what time it is, but it’s only a little while later that Nua rolls over, which wakes up Ava.

He takes some of the blanket with him, and Ava groans, pulling it back, which wakes him up for real. Then she peeks under to see me, and says softly, “Good morning.”

“Hey,” I murmur, and she smiles a bit, sitting up. “Are we all awake?”

“No,” grumbles Penny from the couch, and Ava laughs. He groans. “Seriously, though, Bayan’s still asleep.”

I sit up too, stretching, and look over at them. Penny’s sitting with his head on a pillow by the curve in the couch, Nano sprawled out on top of him, and Bayan’s laying perpendicular to him around the bend, his head on his shoulder, still fast asleep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep before. Ava groans, then rolls forward so she falls off the foot of the bed, and catches herself. “I gotta pee.”

“Congrats,” says Penny. Nano is fully on top of him, and he’s using his other hand that Bayan’s head is not on to pet her, slow over her head. For all his efforts to be gentle Bayan opens his eyes as Ava closes the bathroom door, and then sits up with a slight gasp.

Nua raises his eyebrows, sitting up too, but Penny just puts his hand on his arm. “It’s fine, you don’t need to make breakfast.”

Bayan looks down at him, and he grins, squeezing his arm, and goes back to petting Nano.

“Since when does your door lock?” asks Ava as she comes back in the room, and Nua rolls over, rubbing his eyes. “What?”

“The door,” repeats Ava. “From the bathroom to your room.”

“It’s never been able to lock,” I answer.

“It was locked from the bedroom side when I went in.”

Nua knits his eyebrows together. “No.”

“Well, yeah,” says Ava, crossing her arms, and Bayan stands up, then goes into the bathroom after her. “Since when?”

I lean back on my elbows. “It’s never been able to lock before, from either side.”

“At least when you lived there,” mutters Ava as Bayan comes out of the bathroom. He doesn’t say anything, which for him is a confirmation. Ava goes to her door, to the hallway, and grasps the handle. It doesn’t move.

“The bitch locked us in,” says Ava under her breath, and Bayan says quietly, “Miss Ava.”

She glances at him, takes a deep breath, rattles the handle again, then slams her fist against the door. “Goddammit.”

“Miss Ava,” says Bayan again softly, and she exhales. “Penny.”

“Yes,” says Penny, sitting up.

“She locked us in.”

“Yes,” he answers. “Remember fourteen?”

She leans her head back, then closes her eyes and nods. Penny smiles slightly, glancing at Bayan, and he nods. “Come sit down.”

She sighs, but listens. Penny moves over slightly and Sloan opens her eyes slightly, then closes them again. “That’s annoying.”

“Yes,” says Ava quietly. Nua says, “What’s fourteen?”

Penny laughs slightly. “When we were fourteen. It was before we lived here. She threw a party and didn’t want us downstairs in the middle of it so she locked us and Bayan upstairs.”

“That’s gross,” says Nua, closing his eyes as well, and Penny asks, “She ever put sleeping pills in your food?”

“Yup,” say me and Nua and Ava at the same time that Bayan nods again. Penny laughs slightly, and his sister picks up a pillow and presses her face into it. “I hate everything.”

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Nua and I look at each other, but neither of us say anything. Ava groans. “This is not what I had planned.”

“Well, at least it doesn’t seem as if she’s gonna turn us in,” says Penny lazily as Bayan stretches, and then puts his head back on his shoulder. Ava looks at them with a slight smile, but she doesn’t look happy. “Think she’s told your wife?”

Penny doesn’t answer because Nano whines, putting her head in his lap, and Penny rubs her ears. “I know, girl.”

“Locking us in here, fine,” says Sloan. “At least let the dogs out.”

Penny smiles a bit, and looks over at where me and Nua are still sitting in the bed. “Still got your cat?”

“You never liked my cat,” says Ava, leaning her head back, and then she stands and comes over. She picks up Shiv, who squirms, and holds her like a baby. “Hey. I have some treats somewhere in here for her,” she says, sitting down on the bed. “Aber, go into that drawer next to you.”

“Do it yourself,” mutters Penny from the couch, and Ava scoffs. “There’s cigs in there, too, I’m assuming you don’t want me to be tempted.”

Penny presses his lips together but doesn’t answer, and I pull out a branded bag of cat treats. Shiv perks her head up, and Ava holds out a snack for her. The cat licks it out of her fingers, then purrs and curls up in Ava’s lap. Nano whines.

“I know, girl,” says Penny again softly, scratching her head, and Chloe bumps her head into Sloan’s head, then hops up onto the couch next to her. Ava smiles slightly, lying down, and Shiv adjusts herself on her, closing her eyes. Ava runs her hand over her, and I pick a piece of orange fur off my clothes. “So.”

“Any human food in there?” asks Penny, closing his eyes, and Ava snorts, adjusting the cat on her belly. “Nope. What do you all wanna do?”

“You got your phone?” asks Penny, and she shakes her head. “Never got it back after I woke up. She probably has my laptop, too, going through everything on it to see what I was up to. But,” she says suddenly, sitting up, and Shiv complains. Ava picks her up and moves her off her belly. “I have a radio.”

“Who has a radio anymore?” mutters Penny, but Ava ignores him, reaching over to the clock on her nightstand. She hits a button, and static comes through.

Penny makes a noise, holding his head, but Ava hits another button, and music starts to play. I don’t recognize the song, but it’s slow and sad, and Ava sits back. “Perfect, setting the mood.”

“This is kind of depressing,” says Nua, and Ava laughs. “Not if you dance.”

And before I can think she grabs my hand and pulls me out of bed, and I’m reminded of the time she and Keol danced on the train as she wraps her arm around me and puts her head on my shoulder. I look over her hair to Nua, who grins, I think he’s remembering the same thing, only that time on the train Ava had a cigarette in her mouth. When that song ends another similar one starts, but not so sad this time, and Penny pulls up Bayan and wraps his arms around his neck too. Bayan leans his head against Penny’s, and closes his eyes, and Nano whines, jealous.

So we dance to the radio. Ava eggs Nua into joining her, and so I take Sloan as a partner for a little bit, and then I end up with Nua as Ava takes Bayan’s hand. He’s shorter than her, about the same height as Penny, who sits on the back of the couch with Sloan as Nua grasps my hand. When the song ends Ava goes over and turns the volume down, and then sits on the floor in the middle of the room. “Anyone else hungry?”

“Don’t think about it,” answers Penny, going to sit with her, and Ava pulls on his ponytail. “How do you deal with all this hair on your head? Doesn’t it get in the way?”

I look at her, and remember her sitting by the fire with the scissors in her hair, and I wonder where she usually gets her hair cut, when she’s not doing it herself. Penny pushes her hand away and unwinds the rubber band, shaking his blond hair out around his shoulders. “I like it long.”

“Mhm,” says Ava, rolling her eyes, and Penny grins. “So does Bayan.”

Nua snorts and Ava scoffs, looking up at him. He does not say anything, but a slight smile curls on his lips. Penny smirks. “See?”

Bayan just sits down too, and Nua and I join them. Sloan comes with the dogs and Shiv jumps into the middle of the circle too, and once we’re all comfortabely sitting down Ava ruins it by standing up. Penny makes a noise, leaning back until he’s lying down, and says, “Where you going?”

“I have something,” she says, going not to her own bedside table but to the other, the one on the other side of the bed, Keol’s side of the bed. She opens a drawer, shifts through it, closes it, opens another, and then says, “Yes, here.”

And when she comes back she tosses something at Nua, and he catches it in surprise, and I look at it. It’s a deck of playing cards, and Nua laughs a little, shaking them out of the pack. “What do you want to play?”

“Oh, we should play hearts,” says Penny, sitting up again, “we used to always play hearts, the four of us.”

“I taught the boys, but they were bad at it,” says Ava, and Nua scoffs, tapping the cards into neat piles to start shuffling. “You’re a bad teacher.”

The four of them, Ava and Penny, Bayan maybe, and Owen, I think. Bayan must have been the one to teach them, when he was older, a teenager, and they were still kids, and he needed to keep them occupied, he taught them how to play hearts. “Can we even play with six people?” asks Ava, interrupting my thoughts, she’s been counting around the circle, and Bayan smiles a little. “Take out all the twos.”

“What do we start with, then?” asks Penny, and Ava says, “The three of clubs.”

Penny shrugs. “Alright.”

“Aces are high,” Ava reminds Nua as he starts to deal, and he laughs a little. “Alright, yeah, I remember.”

She smiles a little, making eye contact with me, and I can’t help but smile too. Shiv comes over to me when I pick up my cards, and tries to bite the corner of one, and Ava puts her cards down and reaches over to pick her up. “Alright, you, enough.”

The cat makes an angry noise, but then she settles down in Ava’s lap, and Ava holds her cards out for her. “What should I play?”

Shiv closes her eyes and rests her head on her paws, and Ava shrugs. “Alright.” She throws the three of clubs in the circle, and then looks to Sloan, who’s sitting on her right. Sloan has the cards in her hand, but she looks up at us, perplexed. “I don’t know this game.”

And Penny laughs. “Alright. Let’s go over the rules again. Nua, aces are high.”

“Got it,” says Nua again, he sounds annoyed but he smiles, and I laugh. He knocks me with his elbow. The door is locked and we are hungry and the animals whine, but we sit on the floor, and we play hearts.