Saturday morning, Corbin decided furniture shopping was worse than most things he had survived.
Samantha carried two small bags through the door. Corbin carried the rest.
She dropped hers by the kitchen counter and stretched. "I think my feet are dead. Like, medically."
"They'll recover."
"You don't know that."
"I've seen worse."
She gave him a look. "Everything with you is a comparison to something horrible."
"It's perspective."
"It's concerning."
The apartment already looked different. No furniture for several days, but boxes lined the wall, receipts covered the counter, and Samantha had collected items she declared necessary for their new home.
She smiled. "Come on."
The couch took an hour. Samantha sat on nearly every model in the showroom. Corbin sat on one, for three seconds.
They tested six. She liked the fourth but hated the fabric. She liked the fifth but found it too large. The sixth was comfortable but the wrong shape for the room.
Corbin pointed at the fourth. "That one."
"You said you disliked it. Out loud. While sitting on it."
"I do dislike it."
"Then why pick it?"
"Because you liked it."
She looked at him. "You're actually paying attention — to which ones I liked, I mean. Not just enduring the section."
"I usually do."
She smiled. "Sometimes I forget. You're quiet about it."
"That's safer."
They bought the couch.
The bookshelves took almost as long. Samantha wanted something with character. Corbin wanted something that would not collapse.
They compromised on a set with character that passed his inspection.
"You checked the screws," she noted. "And the brackets. And the back panel. In a store, Corbin. In front of witnesses."
"Gravity doesn't care."
She shook her head. "Sometimes I think you make things up to annoy me."
"I'd tell you if I did."
By noon, they had ordered a couch, two bookshelves, a coffee table, a TV stand, a dining table, and six chairs.
They stopped at the store's small café. Samantha sat across from him with a coffee.
"You're doing well," she said.
"I haven't killed anyone today."
She nearly choked. "You can't say things like that in public."
"I was joking."
"You said it like you were checking the weather."
"Dry humor."
"Extremely dry." She smiled into her cup. "You sat on a couch for three seconds. That's a personal record."
"I committed."
"You gave up and delegated. To me."
She set the cup down, then paused. "We still need a desk."
Corbin closed his eyes. "No."
"I need a workspace. The kitchen table has your receipts, my laptop, and a plant I'm actively trying not to kill."
"You have a kitchen table."
"Arguing with you is inefficient."
"Then let's go look at desks."
"That wasn't the outcome I wanted."
"It was the only outcome."
They found three options. Samantha liked the first. Corbin liked the second. They bought the first.
Then came the bed.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"It's a bed."
"You're the worst person to shop with. I want that on the record."
"You invited me."
"I regret it."
"No, you don't."
She lay back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. "This one."
"Of course."
They chose the bed.
By the time they finished, they had spent more money than Corbin normally spent in a year. At the car, Samantha looked at the stack of receipts in his hand.
"You're getting good at this."
"I've been doing it for six hours."
"I've learned nothing."
She laughed. At the trunk, he looked into the bag she handed him. "Throw pillows."
"Four."
"They're both pillows."
"You hate shopping."
"I hate inefficient shopping."
"What is efficient shopping, in the gospel according to Corbin?"
"Walk in. Buy the first acceptable item. Leave."
"That explains your entire life."
He shut the trunk. For once, he had no response.
"Nothing?" she asked.
"Don't get used to it."
They drove back to the apartment and dropped the bags in the new living room.
Samantha looked around the empty space. "We're actually doing this."
"Doing what?"
"Building a home. Boxes, receipts, throw pillows — it's all very official."
Corbin looked at the boxes, the receipts, the decorative pillows. "Apparently."
"I think it will be good."
"So do I."
She looked at him, her expression softening. "Thanks for doing this with me. I know today wasn't your idea of a good time."
"It needed to be done."
"That isn't what I meant."
"I know."
She smiled. "You're getting better at this."
"At what?"
"Accepting a thank you."
Corbin's phone vibrated before he could answer. An encrypted message — no name, no number, just the private channel.
THE OBSERVER IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM.
He already knew that. He had left the Observer tied to a chair, taken the phone, and walked away before the furnace flared. There was no mystery about the man's fate.
The mystery was how the sender knew.
Corbin typed back: STOP HAVING ME FOLLOWED. YOU'LL STOP LOSING ASSETS.
He sent it.
Three dots appeared on the screen, hovered for a second, and disappeared. Nothing else came through.
He locked the phone.
Samantha watched him. "Work?"
"Yeah."
"Everything okay? Because you just did the thing where your face closes."
"Everything's fine. I'm sure."
"You get weird after those messages," she said.
"Weird how?"
"Still. Quiet. Like a paused video."
"I'll work on my playback."
"Please do."
She nodded. "Good. Because we need to figure out where all this goes."
"Tomorrow."
He stared at her.
She laughed. "Are you hungry?"
"Not particularly."
He considered arguing. He didn't. "Fine. Dinner."
"There's a restaurant a few blocks away."
Corbin picked up his keys. "Give me ten minutes."
Ten minutes later he came back in a dark shirt and jeans.
"You really took ten minutes," she said.
"I said ten."
They stepped into the hallway. For once, Corbin didn't check the locks before leaving. He almost did, but stopped himself.
They walked down the stairs into the cool evening air. Samantha slipped her hands into her jacket pockets.
"Cold?"
"A little."
"We're really doing this," she said.
"The apartment?"
"The apartment."
"Apparently."
She smiled. "You're allowed to be excited."
"This is what excited looks like."
She laughed. "When I first met you, I thought you didn't like people. Genuinely. I had a whole theory and everything."
"I don't."
"But you like me. The theory has a hole in it now."
He looked straight ahead. "That's a dangerous assumption."
"You didn't say no."
"I noticed."
The restaurant was small and warm, filled with enough noise to feel alive without being crowded.
Corbin paused just inside.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
He scanned the room: front entrance, side exit, kitchen access, windows, reflections, patrons. Nothing immediately wrong.
"Table?" he asked.
She pointed toward a booth near the back.
A waiter appeared. "Drinks?"
"Water," Corbin said.
"Coffee," Samantha said. "It's evening. I know. I want it anyway."
The waiter nodded and left.
"You'll be up all night," Corbin said.
"So will you. We'll be a matched set — you not sleeping on purpose, me not sleeping chemically."
"I don't sleep."
"That's not healthy. I've decided to say it every time until it counts as treatment."
"It's efficient."
She picked up the menu. "You're ordering real food. Not just coffee. Food, with a fork, like a person in a restaurant."
"I heard you."
For the first half hour, it was easy. They talked about the apartment, the furniture, her new job. She described a coworker who had already annoyed her. He listened and even laughed once.
"The printer guy thinks he's management," she said. "He scheduled a meeting about the printer. A meeting, Corbin. With an agenda. The printer was not invited."
"Did it help?"
"The printer is still jammed."
"Then the meeting worked," Corbin said. "It solved nothing, which is what meetings do."
"You laughed," she said.
"I did."
"I didn't know you could. I'm learning so much today."
Dinner arrived. Steam, noise, the clink of plates.
For a while, Corbin forgot about everything else.
Then he noticed the man near the bar.
Mid-thirties. Dark jacket. Phone on the table. Drink untouched. He wasn't eating or talking to anyone, and he had been looking toward their table for three minutes. Never directly.
Corbin picked up his glass and watched the man's reflection in the window behind Samantha. The man's eyes shifted away.
Corbin took a sip of water. Set the glass down exactly where it had been.
"Corbin?"
"Hmm?"
"You stopped listening."
"What face?"
"The face where you're somewhere else."
"I'm here."
She kept talking. "...and I think the desk should go near the window."
"That works."
"You don't care."
"I do care."
Corbin glanced toward the bar again. The man was still there, scrolling through his phone.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"You've gone quiet."
"Just thinking."
"About?"
He glanced toward the window. "The windows."
She laughed. "Of course."
He stood. "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?"
"Restroom."
Corbin walked toward the back corridor, watching the man in the reflection of framed pictures on the wall. The man waited. Corbin entered the restroom and stepped back out thirty seconds later.
The man was gone.
The front door rested shut, but the man's untouched drink remained on the bar. His phone and jacket were gone.
He returned to the table.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"You keep saying that."
"Because you keep asking."
"Fair."
They finished dinner, Corbin paid, and they walked outside.
Samantha wrapped her arms around herself. "It's colder than I thought. This is what I get for trusting the window. The window lied to me with sunshine."
Corbin took off his jacket. "Here."
"You'll be cold."
"I'll survive."
She put it on. It hung loose on her frame. "Thanks."
Corbin scanned the street. Cars moved through the intersection. Pedestrians walked the sidewalks. Everything looked normal.
He hated normal. Normal was where people let down their guard.
They walked in silence. Her shoulder brushed his arm. Neither moved away.
She looked at him. "Are you sure you're okay? Actually okay, not Corbin okay."
He stopped. She stopped too.
Streetlight caught the edge of her face. She was wearing his jacket. For a second, the surrounding street faded away.
"What?" she asked softly.
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"So are you."
"I asked first."
"I was thinking."
"About?"
He didn't answer.
"You do this a lot," she said. "Stop in the middle of the street and go somewhere else."
"I'm here."
"Dinner was good," she said.
"It was."
She laughed quietly. "This is awkward."
"A little."
"I'll go first," she said, stepping forward.
When they reached their building, Corbin looked back at the street. A dark sedan was parked beneath a tree. The driver was hidden in shadow.
The car pulled away slowly. He watched it vanish around the corner.
He memorized the plate. Different from the one last week. Or the same car with different plates.
Either way, it had been there too long.
"Corbin?"
He turned. Samantha was holding the building door open. "Coming?"
"Yeah." He followed her inside, this time locking the door behind them.
He wasn't thinking about the apartment anymore. He was thinking about the man at the restaurant who had left too fast, and the sedan that had stayed too long.
Maybe they were unrelated, but Corbin didn't believe in coincidences. Someone had been watching them, and he intended to find out why.