"Psst!"

Jeff blinked a few times. For some reason, Annie was hissing at him. "Hmm?"

"You were asleep," she said with an smile as she curled up with her feet under her, next to him.

For a split second he thought perhaps he was dreaming, that Imaginary Annie had broken free. Then he remembered where he was, and why, and relaxed. "I was not," Jeff retorted. He glanced around. Vicki had disappeared and the television was no longer showing an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but in general the environment hadn't changed. He was still sitting at one end of the couch, leaning back with his feet up on Vicki's coffee table. Annie had moved from the other end of the couch to practically on top of him, but that was a welcome improvement.

She was close enough that he could feel the rise and fall of her breathing. "So you just sat there, eyes closed, pretending to sleep while Vicki and I made fun of your forehead?" Annie spoke quietly, almost whispering into his ear.

Jeff sat up, perturbed, which had the unfortunate side effect of pushing Annie a little away from him. "What? Why would you make fun of — new question, what's it to you if I was asleep?"

"Well, Vicki went to bed." She seemed on the verge of laughing. "And I need to go to bed…" She ran her fingers along his arm and shoulder. "And you're welcome to sleep here if you want—"

He scoffed. "You say that like there's a chance I might not want to sleep with you."

"Ha ha. I meant, sleep here on the couch." Annie leaned close up against him again, her chin on his shoulder. "You've seen my bed. It's a futon and it's tiny. It's only a twin; it converts to a chair. Don't give me that look," she added, seeing his glare. "It was here when I moved in."

"Okay, that's priority one. I was going to buy you flowers or a cheese clock but no, plainly what you need is a real bed."

She sighed, but he could tell she was pleased. "You don't need to… wait, a cheese clock? What's a cheese clock?"

"Did I say that? I didn't say that." Jeff cleared his throat. "Did you really wake me up to tell me I could go to sleep?"

"I thought you might want to drive home and sleep in your own bed… I mean, you're welcome to stay," she added quickly. "It's just, there isn't anywhere good for you to sleep."

"Oh. Sure." Jeff stretched, and she shifted back again. "I can go. I'll see you tomorrow?" He bent over, ostensibly to look for his shoes, but mostly so Annie couldn't see the disappointed expression on his face. Casual, dammit, casual. You can do this. It's okay. It's okay.

"Of course! Listen, you can stay, really. It's just, my bed… and the couch…"

"No, no, it's fine. I'm going."

Annie sighed. "I made this weird, didn't I?"

"Nah. Little bit." Jeff shrugged. "It's okay." He patted her leg, which became a one-armed hug, which became kissing her, with her enthusiastic assistance.

"Thanks for coming over," she said a moment later. "Not because…" She smiled. "I mean, I didn't think you were actually going to get Vicki ice cream."

"Clearly I had to get Vicki ice cream. I don't want your roommate whispering negative innuendos about me in your ear."

"Negative innuendos?" she repeated skeptically.

"I don't know! You just woke me up."

"Oh, so, now that it's a convenient defense to evade consequences for phrases like 'cheese clock' and 'negative innuendos,' now you're admitting that you fell asleep?"

Jeff tried to scowl, but failed — her smirk was too adorable. "I am way too groggy for this."

"If you're so groggy," Annie said solicitously, "then maybe you shouldn't be driving. I'd hate for you to fall asleep on Storrow Drive and crash."

"I'll be fine."

"Okay then." She watched as Jeff pulled his shoes back on. "You know, I've never had anyone show up with ice cream for my brokenhearted roommate, just because I asked for it."

He smirked at that. "I've done a lot more than that when you've asked, over the years."

"I know! But still…" Annie scooted back on the couch, the better to regard him. "I'm like, 'bring over ice cream,' and you do? And then you sit back all cute on the couch… it was a different side of Jeff Winger than I'm used to. More domestic."

Jeff leaned back and turned to face her. "You've got every side of Jeff Winger at your disposal, you know that."

"Do I?" Annie asked, sounding far more uncertain than he'd expected.

Jeff scoffed; the answer to her question was, he thought, self-evident. "Yeah, you do. And if my options are driving home or sleeping on the couch, then I should be going."

"Um." She bit her lip. "How about a sleeping bag next to my bed?"

"Like a slumber party? You know neither of us are in elementary school, right?"

"Hey," she said, holding up her hands, "if you don't want to, that's fine."

He smiled. "No, no, I'm going to. I just like giving you a hard time."

"That sounds like you." Annie leaned over, ran one hand lightly across his chest. "How sleepy are you, really?"

"Why do you ask?"

She gave a little shrug. "I might have stopped at a drugstore on the way home and I might have picked up a few things. Stuff."

" 'Things' plural?" Jeff asked, intrigued.

"Just some stuff." Annie pointed towards her bedroom. "There might be a shopping bag hanging on the inside knob of my bedroom door…"

He smiled as he rose and headed in the direction she'd pointed. "I should have predicted you'd plan ahead — that's my Annie."

"Mmm, is that who I am?" she asked, her face lighting up as she followed him. "Your Annie? Does that make you my Jeff?"

Jeff crossed the threshold into her room. "Have I not been dopily clear about that?"

"Heh." Annie closed the door behind her, and leaned against it. "Seriously, though, what are we doing here, exactly?"

He turned, feigning confusion. "What, you lure me in with promises of Always Sunny and a shopping bag of miscellaneous 'stuff,' and…?"

"Are we a couple now?" she asked, suddenly deadly serious. "Vicki thinks you're my boyfriend but she thinks you've been my boyfriend for the last five or six years."

Jeff smiled in a way he hoped was disarming. "Vicki's not real perceptive."

She smiled faintly in return. "Maybe more perceptive than you think."

"Do you want a boyfriend?" Realizing that this was a conversation that was happening now, apparently, Jeff sat down on Annie's twin bed. "I mean, obviously… it wasn't more than a few nights ago that you were suggesting we not talk about this for a week." He tried the smile again, hoping to keep it low-key. Act casual, he reminded himself. If she isn't up for a relationship, don't push her. Don't make this awkward.

"That is not what I suggested," Annie said, probably more petulantly than she meant to. "I suggested we just take it slow—"

Jeff cut her off before she worked herself up. "Which we did," he said, "for… what, almost an hour?"

"More like a day." Annie reddened slightly, remembering the night before. "It's been a pretty crazy week. But you didn't answer my question."

"You didn't answer mine! I've been very clear," he said, more defensively than he meant to. Neither of them wanted this to turn into a fight. "I will do whatever you're willing to do. I just want to—"

"To be part of my life, yeah," Annie said, nodding. "That sounds pretty… boyfriendy."

She looked at him, and he stared resolutely at his feet. "I guess it does."

Panic flashed over Annie's face before she recovered. "If you don't want to do this, that's fine, but I need to know if—"

Jeff winced, and quickly looked up, making eye contact with her. "No, no, I'm sorry, I do. I just don't want to screw anything up by moving too fast."

"Yeah, well." Annie tossed her shoulders back and gave him a nervous smile. "I know how that feels. I can definitely see the appeal of never talking about it, of just making out instead, whenever the subject comes up. But you know me: I thrive on labels and tidy categories and checklists."

Jeff nodded thoughtfully. "We've been dancing around this for a few days now."

Annie folded her arms. "We've been dancing around this for a lot longer than that."

"Yeah, I guess we have." Jeff took a deep breath before taking the plunge. "So do I get to be your boyfriend?" He paused, watching her expression, before continuing in a firmer tone of voice. "I want to be your boyfriend. Sooner or later you're going to be president or empress or regional director of the FBI, so I should get in on the ground floor. Stay on your good side."

She smiled that shy little smile he only saw when he was very lucky. "So… okay," Annie said, with the finality of a judge rendering a verdict. "I grant you permission to be my boyfriend. If I get to be your girlfriend."

"If you get to…?" Jeff chuckled. "That sounds like a real bargain for me. I'd be a fool not to jump at the chance."

"Well, okay then." Annie's smile grew as he stepped towards her for a kiss.

"Okay." Jeff hesitated, his lips inches from hers. He felt at least as giddy as she looked.

She let out a little squeak of frustration when he didn't close the distance immediately, and before he knew what was happening she'd grabbed him and pulled him down to her, kissing him with an ardor unmatched since at least the night before.

About an hour later they reached the point of investigating the contents of the shopping bag.

"I didn't know what would be helpful, or appropriate," Annie warned Jeff as she emptied the bag onto the bed between them. "It's not something I have a lot of experience with…"

"You used to live above a sex shop," he pointed out.

"That was… I only went in a couple of times, just to look, and it was really different from the aisle of the CVS with the tampons and the pregnancy tests. I just mean, I don't know, like, what brands are good, so I got a bunch. I'm not expecting to use, uh… however many condoms that is." She gestured to the small pile of cardboard boxes.

Jeff grinned at her. He examined the boxes and did some mental addition. "One hundred ninety-four. Yeah, I think this should last us at least a couple of days."

Annie let out a nervous chuckle. "And you know, there's a bunch of different kinds of, um, personal lubricant…"

"So we can experiment. Or just pick one, or… it's okay." He pulled her into his lap, embracing her with an affection that might have seemed platonic had they been dressed, or had he not followed it up by sliding her hair out of the way and kissing the side of her neck. "Thanks for thinking ahead," he murmured in her ear. "If I'd been thinking ahead I'd have picked up condoms when I bought Vicki's ice cream."

She hummed, enjoying his attention. "Mmm. Um, well. I don't have your, um, experience in this area… I don't want to disappoint —"

Jeff coughed, suddenly. "Hah. Yeah. That's not going to happen. There is zero possibility of you disappointing me." He flashed what she recognized as his anxious stall-for-time grin. "I'm the one whose last lover, four years ago, complained more than once—" He broke off abruptly, realizing that this was a terrible time to bring up Britta.

Annie, at least, either hadn't made that connection or else she didn't dwell on it. She drew up to reassure him, placing one hand on the back of his neck and looking him in the eye. "Jeff, I promise you… you…" She trailed off, laughing at her seriousness. "We're really overthinking this."

Jeff nodded. "Getting all up in our heads, yeah. We can kiss, though. I like the kissing."

Annie affected a pained whine. "But we were doing so well! It took us five years to get from first to second base. Don't tell me we need another five years to… what do you call it when a base runner advances from third? There's got to be a term."

"We don't have to do anything right this second," Jeff said, as he played with her hair. "Legally we have thirty days to have sex before our relationship is annulled."

Annie giggled. "I don't think that's true…"

"Which one of us is a lawyer?"

Afterwards they managed to share the twin mattress. Jeff might have migrated to the floor next to Annie's bed, but she'd fallen asleep on top of his arm and he would have had to wake her and disentangle himself and there was no chance of that happening. In the morning his back was killing him, but it was worth it.

Friday found Annie in an ebullient mood. For the second time in two days, she had awakened in Jeff's arms. He was snoring lightly, something that for years after Annie would find frustrating, but in the moment she thought it inexpressibly lovable. It felt good to wake up with the memory of the night before, and even better to wake up with him there. She debated getting him up; he'd woken up when her alarm went off, a few minutes after Annie was already awake, but he'd rolled over and gone back to sleep immediately. She settled for waking him again after she'd already showered and dressed and prepared herself for the day, a few minutes before she needed to walk out the door. He offered to drive her into the city, if she'd give him a minute to find his pants and shoes, but Annie turned him down, on the grounds that she needed to clear her head before arriving at the office. So instead Jeff insisted she meet him the instant she was off the clock, and she gracefully gave into his demands.

"Small triple americano?" Jeanne the barista asked Annie as she approached the counter at Beans 'n Things. "You look chipper."

"Hi! Yeah, no. You know what? Small latte. Gonna mix it up today!" Annie grinned at Jeanne, who held fast to her usual expression of slight disgust.

"That's amazing. You're really stepping out of your little bubble and growing as a person," Jeanne said. "You got a milk preference, or you just want to roll the dice?"

"Surprise me!"

"Awesome. Almond milk," Jeanne announced as she notated that on a paper cup. "You'll love it. It costs way more than regular milk; that's prestige you're paying for. You think Kanye drinks milk squeezed from cows, like a calf? No, it's almonds all the way."

"Um, okay," Annie said, a little taken aback. "Sure. Fine."

"Good call. It's a real power move. But I have a better surprise for you. I know, you ask, what could be a better surprise than almond milk? Buckle up, sister!"

"What?"

Jeanne turned her head slightly, indicating to Annie's right.

Annie turned her head, then froze when she saw the guy at the table near the window.

"Hi," said Joe Brown.

"It's a crazy ride," Jeanne declared.

"I've got it," Joe Brown said when Annie turned away from him and tried to pay for the latte. "Come here, sit down, I really need to talk to you."

"That's okay," Annie said awkwardly. "I'd really rather just buy my own —"

"It's okay. I'm willing to let each of you pay," Jeanne declared, with Solomonic gravitas. "I'll just pocket the extra money, no questions asked. That's my gift to you."

Joe Brown tried again. "If you're willing, I just need a few minutes of your time."

"I mean, my bus is going to be here in… uh…" Annie glanced at the app on her phone, then did a double take. In her desire to not let Jeff keep her in the apartment too late she'd left too early. "Ten minutes?"

"It's about Pierce Hawthorne!" cried Joe Brown.

"Oooh." Jeanne gave her best impression of a live studio audience, marveling at the escalation. "I did not see that coming!"

"Are you being sarcastic?" Annie asked her.

"Duh. I don't know who Pierce Hawthorne is," Jeanne said amiably. "Are you guys going to pay double for this almond milk latte, or not?"

"Pierce Hawthorne is alive," Joe Brown told her, once Annie had reluctantly sat down across from him.

"How do you know? And how do you even know I know Pierce?"

"Okay. Well. I wasn't completely honest with you before," Joe Brown admitted.

Annie folded her arms. "Well, I knew that…"

"I didn't tell her anything!" called Jeanne from behind the counter. "Except about you being a weirdo!"

Joe Brown wiped his brow. "No, it's like… okay. I'm a private investigator. I was hired to watch you. I wasn't supposed to talk to you, but you were just so nice…"

"You're a spy?"

"I'm a PI. My client — I shouldn't tell you this. There's supposed to be confidentiality. My client is a lawyer downtown."

"William Stone, at Biddle Heath," Annie guessed immediately.

"Yeah, he — I didn't say that!" Joe Brown winced. "I didn't say that. He hired me to watch you every day, make sure you were going to work, and that you were well, and… I don't know why, but I pieced together that he's working with this fugitive who faked his death, Pierce Hawthorne…? You knew him back in Colorado—"

Annie interrupted him. "Is your name even Joe Brown?"

Joe Brown looked embarrassed. "Actually, no. Joseph Braunschweig. Hi." He smiled nervously and extended his hand, which Annie didn't shake. "I wasn't supposed to talk to you," he continued, slowly retracting his hand. "The stuff about having the Natalie Is Freezing tickets for my mother, and wanting to take you out, all that was true."

She grunted in the most discouraging manner she could muster.

"I'm sorry that evening didn't go better," he added. "I got fired for asking you out, and it kind of put a damper on things."

Annie frowned. "Something did, anyway." Mostly, like she'd thought at the time, she hadn't enjoyed the date because it wasn't with Jeff.

"But I know you've been seeing a new guy," Joe Brown — Joseph Braunschweig? — said. He retrieved a laptop from the bag by his feet and flipped it open in front of her. "Jeff Winger. You knew him in Colorado and now he's here. He's a lawyer at Biddle Heath too, did you know that?"

"I did, yeah. How do you know I've been seeing Jeff?"

He chuckled anxiously. "Well, I, uh, I was hired to surveil you—"

"You just said you got fired."

"Yeah."

Annie glared at him. "So you've been stalking me?"

"Not cool, Joey," Jeanne interjected. "Not cool."

"Uh, I was concerned, okay?" He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "And with good reason, I mean, this guy Winger — do you know what he was doing yesterday?"

"Bringing my roommate ice cream?" It was definitely in the top three most boyfriendy things anyone had ever done for Annie, she was pretty sure, alongside 'drive her to the airport and kiss her goodbye' and 'ask to be her boyfriend.'

Joseph Braunschweig shook his head, nonplussed. "He was meeting Pierce Hawthorne!"

Annie leaned back, ready to unload a full salvo of aggressive skepticism on this guy, when he tapped a key on the laptop. Its screen suddenly sprang to life, showing a series of digital photos. Jeff and Mark and Stone, getting out of a car in a driveway at a little suburban-looking house. Them knocking on the door. Another man — Pierce? — opening the door and beckoning them in. The four men barely visible through a window — Jeff, Mark, Stone, and maybe-Pierce. An extreme close-up of the back of someone's head, through the same window. Pierce — finally, a clear shot, definitely Pierce — and Jeff shaking hands in the driveway, as the group prepared to leave again.

"I took these yesterday afternoon in Squantum," Joseph Braunschweig declared as he watched her stare at the laptop. "That's Pierce Hawthorne. He's supposed to be dead."

"Yeah. Yeah, he is," Annie said absently. Meanwhile her mind was racing: maybe Jeff had been in cahoots with Pierce since… worst-case scenario, since before that farce of a faked death. God, how stupid must she have been, to believe that ridiculous story? In retrospect it was blindingly obvious and she felt like an idiot. Jeff had just been jerking her around, same as Pierce, and…

No. Think about it for two seconds and that falls apart. Jeff must have just found out about it. He was so certain that Pierce was alive, at least as of Wednesday night. It was only Friday, and he'd spent both nights since then with her. If these were taken on Thursday, it must have been just as Jeff was getting his conspiracy theories confirmed. If he'd known about it when they found the VHS tapes… or was that a trick? She thought back. She'd found the tapes in Stone's office. She'd suggested searching Stone's office, not him. Granted, Jeff had talked her into it, when she'd balked, but he wasn't so manipulative as to trick her into thinking it was her own idea, was he?

He couldn't have known Pierce was alive then, she decided. It wouldn't make sense for him to point out to her the errors in his legal documents (she wasn't quite sure what they were but she believed Jeff when he said they proved that both sides of the suit he was working on were the same person or group of people). He'd said he would confront Stone about it. Probably he had. Probably Stone's response was to admit the jig was up and arrange a face-to-face meeting.

So why hadn't he told her immediately? He could have texted her yesterday afternoon, just before or just after the event Joseph Braunschweig had photographed. Even if he thought it was something that needed to be revealed in person, which made some sense, he'd had ample opportunity to do that last night. Maybe not while Vicki was there, but after she'd gone to bed and Annie had done her best-friend duty? There had to be some reason, probably a very reasonable reason; she just couldn't guess what it was. Of course they hadn't talked about a very wide range of topics, at that point… maybe he meant to and then all the making out and physical intimacy had driven it out of his mind…

For right this second, Jeff deserved the benefit of the doubt, Annie decided. She'd ask him about it when she saw him next. Which would be, Annie thought with a little giddy kick, later that same day. They hadn't actually made plans for the weekend, but it seemed fairly likely that at the very least they'd end up spending several hours in dishabille together, probably in Jeff's luxurious downtown apartment…

"I know, it's a lot to take in," Joseph Braunschweig said, and Annie jolted back to the present. He probably assumed she was reeling from the revelation of Jeff's supposed betrayal.

"Yeah, definitely," Annie said, looking up from the laptop at last. "Thanks for bringing this to my attention."

Joseph Braunschweig reared back. "Is that it?"

"Hmm?" Annie took a sip from her latte, then made a face. "This is terrible," she called over her shoulder to Jeanne.

"It's not, you're just wrong," Jeanne called back. "You don't know what good is! Mass media has lied to you!"

"Jeff Winger has been colluding with Pierce Hawthorne behind your back," Joseph Braunschweig said, nonplussed by Annie's lack of reaction.

"Colluding is a pretty strong word," Annie observed. She took another sip of the almond milk latte. Still terrible. "I gave this a fair try. It's an acquired taste," she said sadly, setting the latte down on the table in front of her. "Jeanne? Can I just get a small americano, extra shot?"

"Ugh, fine, but you know I'm disappointed in you," Jeanne called back. "Are you paying for it, or is Mister Moneybags here gonna get this one too?"

"Oh, I'll pay." Annie turned back to Joseph Braunschweig. "Thanks though," she said, rising.

"He's — you can't just — he's been lying to you!" Joseph Braunschweig sputtered.

"No, no… well. Maybe he didn't tell me everything immediately, but I'm sure it's fine. I'll talk to him about it, all right? Great."

"But…" Joseph Braunschweig trailed off, dejected. "I mean, can I… can I take you to dinner or a movie or something?"

"Thanks, I'm flattered, you have no idea how rarely anyone asks me out." Or maybe he does, she thought, since he'd apparently been all up in her secrets private-investigator style. "But it turns out I've got a boyfriend, so…" She shrugged, almost apologetically. "Also you're a weird stalker."

"But he's a liar… I… okay, here, look, take my card, and call me? Or I can call you, if—"

Behind the counter, Jeanne let out a bark of laughter. "Joe! Joe, Joe, Joe." She shook her head sadly. "Joe, Joe, Joe. You poor, sad little half-man."

"I gave you a fifty when I came in," Joseph Braunschweig protested.

"And yet I still don't respect you," Jeanne said with a sympathetic sigh. "Some people just can't win for losing."

"I'm just going to go," Annie announced.

"Your coffee?" Jeanne offered her the americano, and Annie accepted it. "Don't worry, I'll take it out of his fifty. Another little present, only because we're such good friends."

"Thanks."

"You can't trust him!" cried Joseph Braunschweig.

Annie turned to go. She figured she had enough time, she could walk to the T station and get there ahead of her bus. "I do, though," she said, and left.

Joseph Braunschweig sighed, and rested his forehead on the tabletop in front of him.

"Wow, that went terribly for you," Jeanne said.

"Yeah. It really did."

"I feel bad for you," Jeanne announced. "So I'm going to make you a mocha, and not even charge you for it. Just taking it out of the fifty you gave me before! That's because I feel sorry for you."

"Thanks," he grumbled sarcastically.

"You're welcome!" Jeanne replied as she started on the mocha. "You should feel privileged because this is pretty unusual. I don't often feel sorry for people. Amusement, contempt, sure, but pity? Rare."

"Great."

"If you die in the next five minutes, like if you step out into the street and get run over by Annie's bus, then you'll be able to take comfort in the knowledge that your life wasn't spent in vain. Because you met me, which makes you very lucky, and you made me feel a feeling, which makes you even more special. Here you go, special boy, a small mocha." Jeanne set the cup down on the counter. She stepped back as Joseph Braunschweig rose and approached it.

"Thanks," he said, as he took the mocha. Then he straightened up, and looked Jeanne square in the eye. "So I'm a special boy, huh?"

"If that's what you need to get through the day." Jeanne made a moue. "People have built lives on lesser things."

"Maybe I'm special enough to buy you a cup of coffee sometime?"

Jeanne burst out laughing. "Oh, that was good. Thanks, I love to laugh. Amusement!"

Joseph Braunschweig sat back down at his laptop, and turned to face away from Jeanne. "Yeah, well. Maybe I'll just get a dog."

"I don't know if I'd trust you with a dog, Joe. Maybe start with a chia pet, see how well you handle that responsibility…"

ANNIE to HIS NAME IS JOE, 0709:

Also you're a pretty terrible PI if you didn't notice Jeff's car parked outside my place this morning! [Happy emoji]

Please never contact me again.

ERASE CONTACT "HIS NAME IS JOE"? [YES]

BLOCK THIS NUMBER? [YES]

ANNIE to JEFF (NEW!), 0710:

[Heart emoji] So Pierce is in Squantum, huh? [Kiss emoji]

(I had to look it up it's a suburb on the other side of the city)

(But you knew that?) [Raised eyebrow emoji] [flower emoji] [kiss emoji]

Just before she reached the office Annie finally did something she'd been meaning to do for a while.

MERGE CONTACT "JEFF (NEW!)" WITH "JEFF (OLD NUMBER DELETE THIS)"? [YES]

It took a little while to process, and when it did happen, Jeff was driving so he didn't see it right away. But in Jeff's coat pocket, his phone buzzed with one hundred seventeen new text messages.