Mangrove Street. Sixth floor of the Timmerman House. If Avery zoomed in on a map all the way, she'd still be able to see her own home. A couple blocks away, at most. She stands with Sophia in front of apartment 603 — one of five on the floor. The hallway connecting them is lavish, though dated. Hardwood floors; replica plaster ceilings that twist into floral designs; and sleek, black trim two-thirds up the wall. Kind of like the inside of a Georgian spaceship. Or a Victorian one.

Avery has no clue, honestly: those are just words she's heard in passing from real estate reality television.

With the twist of a key and the click of a deadbolt, Sophia pushes through the doorway to her apartment. "Welcome hom—" Her limbs lock; her words stop. After a moment, she swirls to the side and beckons Avery in with a sweep of her arm. "Well, welcome here, I guess. After you."

"Not quite home, yet?" Avery says.

"Nope. Not for a while, I'd guess."

Inside, Avery stands in the center of a mostly-enclosed, white-tiled foyer. Walls everywhere but to her left. There, tile transitions to carpet. A living room. Mundane, if not for two bay windows overlooking Mangrove Street. Cracked open as they are, sounds from below flow in: an odd honk; the continuous rumble of tires over cobblestone; and humming. Not actual humming. There's no music in it, but it carries a resemblance to human word. Each syllable battered beyond recognition by wind.

Leaning left, Avery peaks around the foyer wall and takes in the rest of the apartment. A hallway juts off the living room. Three thresholds, two with doors. Probably a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Standard fare.

She starts forward. "I expected Timmerman House to look a bit —" With a gasp, she catches herself at the carpet's edge. "Oh, shoes off?"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Sophia kicks off her own. "Yeah. You can leave them here. Same with coats and whatever." She patters past upon duck-patterned socks and collapses — face first — over the arm of her couch. A navy sectional. "God it's hot in here." She calls, voice muffled by cushions.

It most certainly is. A dry hot, too. Sweat slicks Avery's back in moments, yet the skin of her hands crackle at the slightest movement. She slips out of her shoes and places them side by side — carefully parallel. "Don't you have a thermostat?"

"Nope. Radiators are controlled by—" Sophia rolls her head to the side, unsmothering her words mid-sentence. "— by building management. Nothing I can do about it but open a few windows."

Crossing into the living room, several facts about the current situation hit Avery. For one, she's in someone else's home. There's all kinds of expectations around that. Manners and such. The specifics, of which, shoot out her mind like an anxious champagne cork.

Secondly, this isn't just anyone's home. It's Sophia's. The Sophia she met on a dating app. The Sophia that she went on dates with and danced with and thought about doing... things with.

There could be another fact. Though, thinking of the second certainly doesn't help Avery remember the third.

Wriggling herself upright, Sophia pushes up from the couch and beckons Avery with a wave. "Well? Come on. Can't show you from there; it's back in my bedroom."

Alarm bells ring and Avery's heart sputters. *Her— Her bedroom?

There isn't time to sort out her thoughts: Sophia strides off and disappears through a doorway. So, squashing down the burgeoning, heart-throbbing panic, Avery skitters after her. "R-right, right."

Sophia's bedroom is nothing special. A twin bed covered in a navy comforter, covered — in turn — by a quilt. The kind a grandmother might have given her: flowers, birds, and bees stitched into being from warm-toned scraps of fabric.

Usually, a simple quilt wouldn't occupy so much of a room's first impression. To Avery, however, the depicted subjects flush her thoughts with a long past conversation. An uncomfortable one with her parents.

Her face flushes red.

She hovers near the doorway, clinging to its frame as if in fear of something arcane sucking her in and trapping her in a dungeon.

Dungeon?!