It was easy to blame this new, strange behavior on his first physical dry spell in recent memory. Even though his romantic relationship with Naomi had fizzled more than a few months back, up until last Thursday, work had kept his libido in check. His right hand hadn’t seen this much action since he’d hit puberty.

Josh displayed mental symptoms of decline as well as physical. He had grown so desperate for conversation he resorted to waking up early to catch Clara before she went to work.

Unlike Josh, she loved mornings. As soon as he stumbled into the kitchen, she put on cheesy pop music to accompany her as she made coffee and packed her lunch.

He’d never seen so much Tupperware in his life. She even had little containers for the dressing, so small he could fit three of them in his palm. They were almost cute. Baby Tupperware.

Everything seemed to deflate when she left promptly at seven thirty. He felt so useless sitting around that by day three he offered to drive Clara out to her office in Malibu. Josh had nothing better to do. In the evenings, he picked her up and let her drive home for practice. It was pathetic that basically acting as his roommate’s chauffeur gave him a small, twisted sense of purpose, but these days he had to take the wins wherever he could find them.

He still spent most of the day alone with nothing but the possessions Clara left like footprints across the house. Each afternoon a new box of tchotchkes got delivered to their door. While her changes were subtle, they touched every single room. He’d open a drawer to find coasters or oven mitts. Hand towels appeared in the bathroom, along with some kind of basket of dried flowers and twigs.

She might have a doctorate, but where he came from, that shit would not pass as art.

Clara even bought curtains for his bedroom. He opened the door one day to find them hanging jauntily above his window, both charming and useful. Somehow, while working, she still found time to turn Everett’s man cave into something resembling a home. As if he needed further evidence of her competence to press on the bruise of his stalled career.

He’d started running in the afternoons to have something to do. Trying to burn off the itch he felt in his limbs. On those long jogs to the ocean, he tried to think about his future. Tried to brainstorm production partners, and people within the industry who owed him a favor, but even if he could find someone to let him produce, Josh didn’t have a clue what he’d make.

When he returned home from his latest jog he knew, even before he bumped into Clara’s five separate hampers, that she must have run out of clean underwear. The whole house had filled with sweet-smelling humidity radiating from the small laundry room next to the porch.

He balled his hands into fists and immediately moved to open a window.

Tonight, like every night this week, Clara had deposited herself on the couch surrounded by piles of documents. He didn’t know what kind of workload she’d agreed to when she took that job, but it seemed to involve a lot of take-home reading.

Josh rearranged her laundry baskets so he wasn’t barricaded out of his own kitchen.

“You don’t need to separate your clothes into that many separate cycles,” he told her as he deposited one of the full hampers at her feet.

“I know you probably don’t care since you seem to live in jeans and T-shirts,” she said prissily, “but different types of clothes require different water temperatures and speeds.”

“Yeah, that’s the wrong way to think about it.”

“Excuse me?” Clara lowered the document in her hand.

Bending to examine her system of organization, Josh began to sort through her clothes, rearranging items into new piles on the carpet. “Fabric content determines ideal washing conditions, not color. For example”—he held up a soft T-shirt—“cotton is prone to shrinking. You should only use cold water and air-dry cotton of any color.” He tossed a set of shorts over his shoulder. “Linen wrinkles like a bitch, so you should be pressing those shorts immediately after they come out of that washer.” Two pairs of pantyhose tangled together around his wrist. Josh separated them and placed them over the arm of the couch. “Hanging nylon will avoid that aggressive static situation you’ve got going on.”

Lesson over, Josh followed his nose into the kitchen. He opened the oven to investigate the source of a pleasant peppery smell. “Oh, you can do whatever you want with polyester,” he yelled so she could hear him through the doorway. “It’s hard to mess up polyester.” Josh eyed a lasagna bubbling under the broiler. “Can I have some of your pasta?”

“Of—of course. It’s vegetarian . . . and I made the sauce from scratch.”

Josh’s stomach growled. Another symptom. In such a short time, Clara had already gotten him addicted to vegetables. Probably tricked him into some kind of iron dependency with her magical menu that disguised an ungodly amount of leafy greens. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night craving spinach.

Clara shook her head slowly as Josh joined her on the couch with a steaming plate. “How do you . . . how do you know so much about laundry?”

“I’ve got more than your average experience. My mom works for a dry cleaner. Has ever since I was little. She browbeat that stuff into me as a kid. Last I heard she’s still there. At this rate, her hands will never stop smelling like bleach.”

“Last you heard?”

“I haven’t seen anyone in my family in a few years. Not since I told them about my job.” Josh blew on his loaded fork. “They didn’t get it.”

The guilt from that moment had eaten at him until he’d stopped returning their calls. He’d even gone so far as to change his number and his email address. He didn’t need lectures or quiet concern.

He cleared his throat. “I guess they feel responsible. I think my mom’s convinced that if she had taken me to church more as a kid maybe I’d work in a bank or something now.”

“I know what you mean.”

He lowered his fork and frowned. Clara was a parent’s dream. Polite, respectful, studious. What more could her family want?

Pain washed across her face. “I resent my own mother for taking my family’s decisions so personally. She wears other people’s mistakes like scars. Like she’s keeping score of all our crimes against her. I had a clean ledger until I moved out here and veered off the chosen course. But now . . . it would be easier to face her if she lowered the bar.”

Josh never considered the cost Clara might have paid for her freedom. That they were both running from something. That they might have something in common after all.

“I’m not mad at my mom,” he said. “Not exactly. I get where she’s coming from. No parent dreams of their kid growing up and making porn. But it’s hard, carrying around the weight of her disappointment. I think if she and my dad supported me, even if they didn’t understand, hell, even if they didn’t like it, it would be easier to bear the rest of society looking at me like I’m dirt under their shoe.”

“Do people really look at you like that?”

“I mean, not everyone knows what I do. It’s not like I’m walking down the street handing out dick-shaped business cards.”

Clara covered her mouth with her hand. “Do you have those?” Her eyes had gone almost completely round.

“No. Although it’s not a bad marketing idea. People find out anyway. It almost always comes up at parties. My buddies from high school think it’s funny.” He gave a small, bitter laugh. “I don’t mind the scorn so much. At least those people usually keep their distance. The handsy ones are worse. The ones who think my job turns my body into public property.”

“You mean people grab you?”

“Oh sure. You ever had a guy brush against you on the subway when you know he could have avoided it? Or maybe you’re standing at the bar and some bro puts his hand on your lower back to ‘scoot by’?”

“Ugh, yes.” She glared.

“It’s like that. I get a lot of unwelcome hands in places I’m too polite to mention. When people find out I perform, they stop seeing me as a man. It’s like in their eyes suddenly I’m a big fat Christmas ham. Everyone wants to carve off a slice.”

“I’m so sorry,” Clara said.

Josh stared at his food. “Lots of people have it worse. Almost every woman I know working in the industry has stories about experiencing harassment, even abuse.” How many times had Naomi come home spitting because someone tried to take advantage of her? Tried to make her do things she didn’t want to and often had explicitly refused? Josh tried to use what little power he had to protect her, but the power imbalance remained overwhelming, and besides, he couldn’t protect everyone.

“It’s not a zero-sum game. Acknowledging your pain doesn’t take away from anyone else’s.”

“Thanks, but enough about my pain.” He smiled to let her know he wasn’t fatally wounded. “That’s my cap on feelings for one night.” He balanced his plate on his thigh and reached for his comic book on the coffee table. “I’m going to spend the rest of the night with the X-Men.”

Clara scooted closer. “What’s going on there?” She pointed at a panel.