what happens when life throws darts at you [seamus]

London had always sort of amazed Ron. He’d grown up going to towns like Hogsmeade and Ottery St. Catchpole, where there was no more than one of any business. There were three different pubs within a short walk of his house now. Two different clothing boutiques, and two different restaurants that served only Thai food. Ron had never even had Thai food until moving here. The muggles in big cities had so much of everything. (Their population is large enough to sustain an economy of that scale, explained Hermione, unasked.)

The muggle pub he was at now was the closest one to the Ministry. Some days he and the lads had gone out the toilets way and come here when the thought of being famous was too daunting—which of course it rarely was for Ron but Harry felt so pretty often. It was that reason that kept Ron coming here even now. Being famous was always the most daunting when he stood to publicly make a fool of himself.

Ron swayed a little, tongue between his teeth, before tossing his dart at the board where it struck in the outer ring of the 5. Not unusual.

There were only two of them tonight. Harry was working late, Neville was having dinner with his Gran, and Dean was ill. Hermione had no interest. Seamus was his favorite to play against anyway, as his aim also wasn’t that good. Harry was decent, of course. Neville, surprisingly, was killer. But Ron and Seamus were a couple of drunk mates who wanted to throw sharp things without making a whole deal of it all.

Ron watched Seamus step up to the line and picked up his glass again while he waited. “Sometimes I think I should bring my own Firewhiskey,” he said. “Little flask, or something. To add a little. This muggle stuff just isn’t the same.” Cities may have been intense and overwhelming, but the same couldn’t be said for the liquor sold in them.

Seamus scored, miraculously, a solid thirty. Ron grimaced as his friend punched the air. He’d won one game earlier in the evening but had been steadily worse as the night went on. “Thank goodness Hermione doesn’t like to play,” he muttered. “I couldn’t stand to lose this badly with her watching.”

He'd always thought she'd be very good at darts, if she ever fancied a try. He'd never tried too hard to convince her for this reason.

@Seamus Finnigan

They’d all started coming ‘round this pub when they’d been Aurors-in-training together; it’d started as just the four of them but then Dean had started coming ‘round too, because how couldn’t he?, and even now that Harry was the only one still working for the Ministry, they’d kept it up. No point in breaking tradition, Seamus supposed -- it was easy to keep a favourite place when it was painless to Apparate there.

It was a neat little pub, too -- divey, but not as divey as the Hog’s Head. At the Hog’s Head they just couldn’t afford to have a dartboard -- he’d asked Ab once and been told that some bloke had put his mate’s eye out in ‘75 trying to summon the darts off the board. He supposed muggles were lucky not to have that to worry about.

Ron took ten points and Seamus put his glass down to take his turn.

Tonight it was just the two of them; it was as weird being out with Ron without Dean as he thought it would have been being out with Ron with Dean. He thought Dean liked being around Harry and company more than with the rest of the D.A., where a year-long absence from the action at Hogwarts was a significant gap in experience, but he’d also started feeling like being out with Dean had gotten weird. They hadn’t said anything about it -- he wasn’t sure why, and now it’d been too long to bring it up -- and so they just reverted to being the usual Seamus and Dean when they went out.

But it’d have been nice to have Dean (or Harry) here anyway. Seamus and Ron (and Neville) weren’t so much use in a muggle pub; Seamus had yet to pay correctly on a first try. And they didn’t like the muggle drinks so much -- “No, not at all,” he agreed -- he’d never been one to appreciate subtlety.

He furrowed his brow before he took his shot -- it was a sight better than he or Ron had gotten all night, so he pumped a fist triumphantly -- “Hah!” -- and marked it on the chalkboard. Ron was being sort of dark when he got back to their drinks; Seamus had a sip of lime soda and said, “Reckon she’d be any good anyway? They don’t make Darts through the Ages.” Not that he knew of, anyway. All he could remember about Hermione Granger, sportswoman, was that she was shite on a broom.

Seamus leaned against their table and tilted his head back to the dartboard -- “You’ve still got time to win,” he opined. “Give it the ‘Weasley Is Our King’ comeback.”

Ron finished his non-fire whiskey. “Maybe we could just put up a board in our house,” he said. “Find a couple bottles of something worth drinking and get together at home. Or yours, I s’pose—can’t see the women being too keen.” Well, Ginny might have been, but Ron still didn’t really want her there. He imagined Dean and Seamus’s place to be something like one continuous lad’s night. The sequel to their Gryffindor boy’s dormitory.

He laughed and gave Seamus a grin. “I’d suggest the Hog’s Head, but I don’t really want to hang round there either.” He didn’t know what kind of bonding had gone on between Seamus and Aberforth that year, but Ron was personally impressed that Seamus could put up with the man enough to work there.

Seamus seemed skeptical about Hermione’s theoretical darts ability. Ron wasn’t sure why he thought this, now that he was being questioned on it, and he considered for a minute. “I dunno, I think of her as having good aim.” He chuckled. “You ever duel her?”

While he tested the weight of his dart in his hand, just to stall. Seamus brought up Weasley is Our King. Ron went pink. “Oh, shut it.” It had felt grand, of course, when he was a kid, and obviously he was pleased that Malfoy’s original song had been superseded by a more complimentary one—but after years of friendly mockery and a chorus on nearly every birthday since, Ron had developed a bit of a grudge toward that particular quidditch stands anthem.

 It seemed to help, though—he brought in twenty points this time.

Ron sat back down on the edge of his stool. “Glad you were free, mate,” he said as Seamus returned to the line. “Really needed to put myself in better spirits before the holidays with my mum, now that she’s trying to marry me off.” It was time to quit beating around the bush. He was here mostly to complain.

Seamus grinned; his and Dean’s was a little too small to pack all their friends into, particularly to throw projectiles, but it was a nice thought, him and Dean hosting their stuff. It’d make him feel a little less like he’d stumbled into this heroes’ club by accident. It still baffled him how he and Dean had made these friends solely because they’d had the good luck to be born the same year as Harry Potter.

If anybody ought to be hosting, though, it was Harry and his gigantic dead godfather’s house -- he doubted Ginny of all people would mind -- but he wanted to rest on his laurels for a bit. He snorted at Ron’s next suggestion, though -- “Yeah, that’s exactly where I want to spend my free time,” he said, “My job.”

Had he ever duelled Hermione? “No,” said Seamus, “I’m a little smarter’n that.” Really it was because he’d spent most of fifth year not speaking to Harry, but he was loath to bring that up, even without Harry here. He’d been forgiven for almost ten years now, but he couldn’t shake the urge to self-flagellate just a little bit whenever it came up.

He was up again; he furrowed his brow, but was distracted by Ron talking. “I’m always free,” he said -- this wasn’t strictly true, but it was true enough -- he refurrowed his brow and took the shot (twelve points.)

Seamus had had next to no dealings with Molly Weasley, though he had thought fleetingly a few times that she seemed a little like his mother (or, more like his mother than any of the rest of their mates had.) This sounded characteristic of her, from what he’d heard from Ron or Ginny over the years. He was glad, perversely, to have been so useless for so long that his mum seemed to have stopped prioritising grandchildren in favour of being concerned about him.

It’d be one thing if Ron hadn’t had a steady girlfriend for years, though -- he didn’t think that quite fit the definition of being married off -- but unreasonable complaints were the majority of their conversations here, so he snorted anyway. “Ginny getting married before five of you lot scare her that bad? I’m glad I don’t have siblings.” He didn’t think he could have stood to have his parents measuring him against anybody else.

“Oh, right.” Knowing that Seamus worked there was what brought it up, but the thought had failed to really mean anything. Of course people didn’t want to hang around their workplaces in off hours. Even if they did serve drinks for a living. “S’pose I should be grateful that’s no longer an option,” said Ron. “Does feel like the really shady lot aren’t around there as much, though, doesn’t it?” Freedom fighting hadn’t been good for the Hog’s Head’s original business model.

“Does he like you, Aberforth?” he asked. This was just jealousy—he’d never felt the man liked him very much. Ron shrugged. “Can’t be worse than that bloke with the Aurors, I guess. The one with the mustache?” For every Ministry higher-up who’d treated them as sainted heroes, there was one who felt they didn’t deserve to be there. Mustache bloke had been especially rude about it. Ron was glad to have forgotten his name.

He laughed vaguely and crossed the alcove to pluck out their darts. (He’d lost.)

Ron and Seamus, and Neville now, had that past life in common, but they didn’t talk about it much. For one, Harry was always there. It felt odd to touch on all the ways the job hadn’t been right for them with someone for whom it was right. The lot of them had been in it just for vengeance, or obligation, or the opportunity they’d never have been afforded otherwise. And Harry had been in it for those things too…but even in another world Ron thought he might have been a good Auror for his own reasons. He was the only one of them for whom that was true.

And for two, Dean was also always there, and he didn’t get any of it at all.

Ron looked at Seamus. He supposed this was their opportunity, but he might have to drink a little more before he was willing to take it. He handed the green darts back. “Maybe a pint now, you think?”

It was his turn again when he returned. He pushed the glass he’d spilled a bit from toward Seamus across their little table—he’d always hated carrying drinks without magic. “She’s always been keen on it, I guess,” Ron admitted. Hermione had been staying over all summer for years—Harry and Ginny had probably felt even more pressure. “Imagine if Bill hadn’t managed it, though,” he chuckled. “Bunch of disappointments, we are.”

He was desperate to tell Seamus that Ginny was pregnant now on top of it—there was no one else Ron could trust to be as bewildered as he was. Bloody hell. In a few more months it wouldn’t be work Harry was ditching them for.

Whenever Harry did something these days Ron found himself wondering if he was just doing it because he thought a regular person ought to. Committing to a career, getting married, reading the newspaper with a coffee every day. Ron wouldn’t blame Harry for a desperation to be as normal as he possibly could, of course, even if all he’d ever felt himself was the opposite.

He felt sort of scummy suspecting it, but it made the most sense to him. At the very least, it helped push aside the obvious conclusion: that Harry was just growing up and Ron ought to get a move on.

Seamus frowned and thought on it -- he hadn’t been to the Hog’s Head much when it had been a watering hole for criminals, at least not criminals that weren’t seventeen, but it seemed to still attract a shady enough clientele to keep the families out. “Wonder where they all went,” he said -- he was twenty-three and had still only ever seen Knockturn Alley in glimpses from the neighbouring streets. As a place that he’d never been allowed to go, it’d lost a bit of its appeal lately.

Ron asked if Aberforth liked Seamus -- Seamus shrugged, barely resisting the urge to snort. “Dunno if he’s the liking-people type,” he said, but -- “Yeah, I guess. Tolerates me, at least.” He got the impression sometimes that Ab had been as bullheaded as Seamus had, at eighteen -- though he wasn’t sure how he was measuring up at twenty-three -- and that this was why they’d gotten on back in ninety-eight.

Why they got on now, he couldn’t say -- habit, maybe.

It didn’t look like Ron was thinking about the same thing, though -- he mentioned offhand one of the blokes from the Aurors that had seemed to dislike them particularly, and Seamus grinned, then felt sort of like he’d done that wrong. He had left the Aurors ages before anybody else had, before he’d even actually gotten into the field, which had given the entire experience a kind of unreal quality.

“Sure,” he said -- Ron headed back to the bar, and Seamus retrieved his darts and took his turn. This time he didn’t do so well.

Seamus could never quite keep the Weasleys straight in his head -- was Bill the one that worked at Gringotts or the Ministry? -- but it didn’t really matter which one he was: he was married, and Ron was not. “That’s what you get having a girlfriend,” said Seamus, although -- for some reason -- he’d never been able to imagine Hermione as, like, a girlfriend type. She seemed a little too professional for that, not that his vocabulary was good enough to provide any alternatives. He hadn’t started thinking of Dean as his anything, yet -- Dean was still, like, Dean. It helped that near anybody who knew Seamus already knew Dean.

He shook his head. For a while the idea of their peers getting married to each other had been just insane to him -- and it still was, but he thought he understood it rather a little more, at least in cases like Ron and Hermione, who’d been best friends for half their lives. But the war was over -- he didn’t think there was still any reason to rush. Maybe for Harry it wasn’t, but that wasn’t something he wanted to suggest, even to Ron, who he thought might agree with him. He said, “Well -- I’m glad we quit the Aurors.”

“Prison, I hope.” Not enough to keep catching them, though.

Ron set down his darts on the table and chuckled. “All you can hope for from a boss, I s’pose.” He’d drink to that. Ron and George were in name equals at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, but it didn’t stop him being the little brother. Of course—Ron thought George had gotten a little more sincere, in the years since Fred had died. All of them had. Bit harder to bully your siblings knowing they might not be around forever.

He returned from fetching the drinks to sit down and hook his heels on the rung of the stool, bent knee stuck out probably in someone’s way. This was another tradeoff—Muggle rooms always felt smaller. “You think I should just ask her, then?” he asked, and was drunk enough to consider it. He put his chin in his hand and watched the Muggles at the next table.“Least I can save up for an engagement ring.” There might have been a couple family heirlooms, but Ron had a number of brothers ahead of him in line for those. He’d long been at terms with the fact that he wouldn’t be getting anything Bill or Charlie couldn’t grow out of. Surely Hermione’s taste wasn’t the same as any of his great-aunts anyway.

“Of course, I reckon she’d be angry at me for spending too much on one.” There were more practical things to be saving for. Just because marriage and fatherhood sounded bizarre to him now didn’t mean he’d never envisioned it.

Seamus snorted – “Yeah.” Ron worked for his brother, which he supposed was probably a step or so up from working for Aberforth, who couldn’t be said to have good days so much as inoffensive days.

This was veering fast into a territory Seamus didn’t consider himself qualified to give advice in: he had no idea when normal people proposed to their girlfriends (Harry didn’t count, did he?) but Ron and Hermione were probably in the same general not-normal vicinity as Harry was, so after a moment he said, “Yeah, fuck it,” and had a sip of beer. It was better than the Hog’s Head house brew, though that wasn’t saying much.

He was drunk enough that, when his thoughts strayed naturally back to Dean – trying to imagine what an engagement would look like for them – he didn’t steer them away, but let himself wonder. How were they to know who was going to propose to who? If they pooled all the knowledge they’d ever picked up – Seamus’s chef dad and Dean’s many little sisters – would they have anywhere near enough to be able to plan a wedding? Seamus had always thought that weddings were mostly for brides; did that mean they didn’t have to get one?

Ron jolted him back to the actual topic at hand. Seamus nodded sympathetically, or something – he wasn’t sure what Ron wanted from him, actually. A ring seemed stupid to argue about, anyway – Seamus said after a moment, “Well, she’d come around, wouldn’t she? She knows why you would want to get her something really nice.” He wanted to say that was what people did when they were in love, but he didn’t want to say the word ‘love’, or inadvertently admit to any knowledge of it.

But they were only talking about this because they were alone, and they were at a bar, and somehow that made it feel both more confessional and less serious. He had another sip of beer. “Wait too long, anyway, and I think she’d do it herself.” That seemed characteristic of Hermione.

Ron chuckled. “I dunno.” Suggesting that Hermione would come around about anything felt like advice from someone who had no idea what he was talking about. Not that there was nothing she hadn’t forgiven him for, of course… Ron thought he’d just prefer the physical signifier of their theoretical union not be one of them. “I think as long as I keep clear of diamonds it’ll be fine,” he said. She had some thoughts on the ethics of those specifically. “Can’t understand how anyone could wear a big diamond ring every day anyway.” Couldn’t even twist it around to fidget without the stone getting out of place.

Seamus’s next thoughts on the Weasley-Granger marriage proposal made Ron grimace. “Oh, bloody hell,” he mumbled. “She would.” The thought was terrifying. Part of him wanted to let her do it, of course—surely, better her than him? But the lads already joked enough that Hermione was the one with the reins, and he knew he wouldn’t ever live this masculine transgression down. With only Seamus here it was easy to forget what their whole gang was like. Men made each other so much worse in groups.

He shifted his heels back and forth over the rung of his stool and took a contemplative sip. They made each other worse, perhaps, but also far easier to talk to.

“Dunno why I’m making this such a big deal,” said Ron. He straightened up and stretched his shoulders. “Nothing we don’t know, isn’t it?” For all his waffling about the future he’d never actually considered that it would happen without Hermione. That thought comforted him, warm in his stomach with the whiskey.

He raised his glass a little in appreciation. “Cheers, mate,” he said. “Figure it gets exhausting listening to—couple stuff.” He'd stop now. Seamus had been a good sport.

So Hermione Granger didn’t like diamonds. Seamus couldn’t figure the reason behind that, nor did he think he had the capacity to do so; doubtless it was some scientific reason that would go right over his head. Big diamond rings, like most things girls allegedly liked, had always been so far from the realms of his interests that he never thought of them until they were brought up. There was a lot of sense to what Ron was saying, though – Seamus had never seen much use in ornate rings. But then (he looked at his hands, turning his glass around on its beer mat) he would look pretty stupid wearing one.

Ron thought it was characteristic of Hermione too; bit of a comfort, that. Usually Seamus assumed he didn’t know what he was talking about.

“What, marriage?” he said, or was it Hermione that Ron was certain about? A few months ago Seamus would never have understood that kind of faith, but these days he was trying to emulate it; sometimes he thought Dean was more sure in their whatever-this-was than he was, which was fair, since Dean had been the first one to point it out, but he was doing his best to match his best friend. He wished he had the certainty of marriage to toss around like that – everything felt horribly temporary now, like he still wasn’t a real grown-up. It was the sort of thing that would make less sense to him when he wasn’t a little tipsy, hopefully.

He grinned into his sip, trying to figure out what to say in response to that. Couple stuff had been exhausting all his life until he’d had couple stuff of his own to think about; since then, his friends’ couple stuff had become a weird means of surreptitiously benchmarking himself. Not that it helped; between Ron’s high-achieving girlfriend and Harry’s now massive extended family, there wasn’t a lot that Seamus could relate to, at least on the surface. Deeper down, he thought he could sense insecurity there, in both of them, at least enough to rival his own, but what was he going to do, talk to them about it?

“It’s fine,” he said, “It’s not as annoying as it used to be.” They were long past sixth year, at least long enough he thought he could joke about it a little.“Someday I’ll pay you back.”

Ron blinked. He hadn’t expected to be confronted so directly with what he was saying, but… Seamus wasn’t incorrect. “Yeah… I s’pose.” Marriage. He could see his and Hermione’s future so clearly, so much that he couldn’t imagine a different one. But the steps to get there felt preposterously out of reach. “I’m being stupid about this, aren’t I?” he asked as if Seamus could possibly give him a useful answer. “Maybe I’ll just go home and ask tonight. Get it done.” She wouldn’t love him any less now than over a champagne dinner, would she? Hermione was too clever for that.

He took a long drink.

Seamus replied that his love life was less bothersome than it had once been, and Ron flushed in shame. “Merlin, I bet.” Just the thought that he’d once kissed on the common room sofa made the ghost of embarrassment shiver down his spine. Seamus grinned cheekily at his grimace.

He'd pay him back someday, though. Ron chuckled. “Well, you’re welcome to Lavender,” he suggested. Seamus had always seemed, mysteriously, to take to her better than the rest of them, and right now Ron was drunk enough to take note of it. “Madwoman of course—but.” He shrugged wisely. “I reckon so are all women, in their way.”

Seamus almost laughed; he didn’t think he knew Hermione well enough to be able to predict how she’d react to her boyfriend coming home from playing darts with the lads and proposing marriage, but he thought it might be pretty funny. “Well, let me know how it goes,” he said. Get it done wasn’t the most romantic way to go about it, he thought, but it seemed fitting anyway; as little-equipped as he was to deal with romance, he didn’t imagine Ron was any more well-versed even after however many years he’d been with Hermione.

Thinking it over, he couldn’t think of anybody his age being actually romantic except for Dean and Lavender, both of whom he thought he saw more of than Ron; maybe his perception was just skewed. Ron took a long drink; Seamus put his glass back down.

As always, even hinting that he was thinking about Ron and Lavender in sixth year humbled Ron immediately. Seamus grinned. You’re welcome to Lavender – he was inclined to throw out something kind of mean (any sentence involving ‘Won-Won’ came to mind) but just laughed instead. Ron went on – Seamus, unable to dispute that Lavender was a little mad, nor that he got on with her rather better than any of the others did, said, emboldened either by the alcohol or by how long it’d been since he had a one-on-one conversation with a bloke that was neither Dean nor Aberforth, “Nah, not Lavender – this is going to sound mental, but it’s Dean.”

Having said it, he took a moment to reflect on how it truly did sound mental, mental enough that his pulse had picked up and his fingers were tense around his glass. Rather than sound more mental by trying to explain himself or immediately going back on his confession, he lifted it stiffly and had a sip.

Seamus brushed aside his suggestion. No, not them; it was Dean.

“She fancies Dean?” Ron laughed aloud. It wasn’t really that surprising. Barring Harry’s famousness, Dean had always been the most popular of the lot of them with women. But he had also always seemed the least likely to put up with Lavender’s brand of nonsense. Perhaps it was just having gone for a girl like Ginny, whose brand of nonsense was exactly opposite, that gave him that impression. It didn’t matter. Seamus thought so too, at least: the thought of them as a functional couple was mental.

But they’d all grown a lot since school, hadn’t they? Ron and Lavender even got on alright these days, now that the threat of romance was no longer dangling over their heads. He had no excuse to act like she would be the world’s worst partner to anyone else. “Well, I believe in her,” he said, raising his glass a little. “Have you seen Malfoy’s girlfriend? If he can get a witch like that to give him the time of day, then I’m sure Lavender can have anyone she likes.”

He looked back to Seamus and bit back another laugh—he didn’t seem to be finding this as funny as Ron was. Ron awkwardly cleared his throat. He’d ask what it was he’d said, but he wasn’t sure if they were close enough mates for that. Just changing the subject was easier. “There’s another reason to get hitched, I reckon,” he said, with a chuckle. “Get it done before Malfoy does.”

Ron laughed; Seamus thought, coherently, ‘shit,’ but chuckled too, just because it was funny to imagine Dean and Lavender together, about ten times weirder than the thought of Ron and Lavender together. But – shit – somehow the second time it was even harder to get out, and the now urgently nagging sense that it would be stupid to bring it up sobered him quickly. He had another sip of his beer and waited for Ron to catch up.

It took a bit, and a detour toward talking about Malfoy. Seamus had not, in fact, seen Malfoy’s girlfriend. He hadn’t known Malfoy had a girlfriend; he had not known Malfoy was, like, going around in public. (A part of him marvelled at the nerve of him, before another part of him thought spitefully that was just typical. He didn’t need to expend much energy to find something offensive in Malfoy’s behaviour, in the rare instances he thought about him at all.)

“Fuckin’ git,” he said good-naturedly, replacing the beer on its mat. It was astonishing, sometimes, how little they’d all gotten past being at Hogwarts – though it felt often like those days were ages and ages in the past, it was so easy to fall back into those patterns, so easy to just fall into their old petty schoolboy crap.

At this point, only loyalty and love for Dean could have made him go on – Seamus absolutely could not let Ron think that Dean and Lavender had a thing going on. Fortunately Ron turned the conversation back on him (though, as soon as he had, Seamus wished they could have gone on slagging off Malfoy.) Get hitched. Again he thought about how weird it was to think about marrying another man. Did that happen? He’d never heard of it.

“I’ll try,” he said. “Mate – earlier, when I said Dean – I mean it’s Dean and me, not him and Lavender.”

Ron laughed at this too, but despite all Seamus’s efforts to make it a laughing matter it was plain it wasn’t one. “Really?” he asked. That too, was plain. “Huh.”

He was less surprised about Dean—though Hermione would likely tell him it was bigotry that it was based entirely upon his artistic temperament. It took some more time to reconcile the thought of Seamus on his arm. Not that he thought on it often, but Ron had always had trouble seeing Seamus in a relationship. He seemed like the eternal bachelor sort, happy enough with the lads not to bother with romance.

This was, Ron supposed, one way to be happy with the lads. “I don’t think it’s that mental,” he said. He hadn’t finished reconciling enough yet for that not to be a lie, but at least he thought he could get there. It made more sense than either of them with Lavender, at any rate.

He took a long sip.

“Just don’t dump him in front of everyone,” he said. “Reckon the bloke’s had enough of that for a lifetime.” He’d been less than happy while Dean was going with Ginny, but from the eye contact they’d shared after being publicly, humiliatingly ditched on the same night, Ron had gathered his roommate had taken it far less well than he did.

He laughed nervously. “’Course, I reckon it helps that your flat hasn’t got any portrait holes.”

This was perhaps a low blow toward a man who wasn’t here to defend himself, but considering that he'd been drinking tonight, Ron thought he was handling this better than he could have been. Dean still heard a lot of this from everyone, after all. They all had stuff they couldn’t live down. Ron always figured that had been behind Seamus’s American adventure— wanting to be around people who hadn’t known him through childhood and adolescence for a change.

"This is new, right?" he asked, unable to suppress it any longer. "You weren't, like—when we lived together—"