WITH AN ARMFUL OF last week’s laundry, I make my way to the little closet off the kitchen and deposit everything at my feet as I take a look at the washer and dryer situation.

A moment later, I’m loading up the washer, and when I glance through the circular door of the dryer, I find it full of a load of Sutter’s whites.

Without a basket nearby, I have no choice but to carry everything to the kitchen table, only after I do that, this little voice in my head is telling me to be the bigger person and not leave it there to get wrinkled and lumpy.

Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a load of t-shirts. Mostly work shirts, it seems. And I take five minutes to fold them neatly into two even stacks.

After the constant butting of heads last week, I spent this past weekend avoiding him, and he was long gone for work by the time I got up this morning.

I’m thinking maybe we’ve taken this too far. And that the button-pushing needs to stop. I mean, neither of us wants to live like this for the next six months. I know I don’t. He’d be insane to want to keep this up. And honestly, I don’t particularly like this side of me. It feels more like a character than anything else.

Heading upstairs, I grab a pen and a Post-It and return to the stack of laundry on the table and write: “OLIVE BRANCH?” with a smiley face.

A knock at the door summons my attention as I adhere the note to the table, and Murphy barks. Making my way to the front door, I spot my best friend Aerin’s familiar silhouette.

“Wasn’t sure if you were coming or not,” I say when I greet her. “Thought you might flake.”

She yanks her giant sunglasses from her face and feigns annoyance. She’s probably the most reliable, dependable, OCD, woman-of-her-word person who ever walked the earth.

“So this is where Nick’s been shacking up all year?” she asks, taking a look around. Her arms lie stiff and flat against her side as if she’s expecting dust bunnies and used panties to pop out of nowhere.

“It’s clean,” I say. “Sutter is surprisingly not a slob.”

“Why surprisingly?”

I lift a shoulder. “I don’t know. I just thought someone living with Nick might have Nick’s tendencies? Like attracts like.”

Aerin removes her pointy toe flats and aligns them neatly on the corner of the entryway rug before heading to the living room and taking a seat on the sofa.

I take the chair, letting Murphy squeeze in next to me.

“So are things better now?” she asks. “With you and Sutter?”

Last weekend, she met me for drinks at Bleu Cerulean in Brentwood and listened with her signature intentness as my frustrations flowed like a lemon vodka-flavored river.

“We didn’t talk all weekend,” I say. “He was gone a lot. I was busy.”

“Awkward.”

“Not awkward,” I say. “Just weird. I folded some laundry for him just now.”

Her jaw falls. “Why would you do that?”

I laugh. “Because I’m willing to bet if I start being nice to him, he might be nice to me back? I don’t know. Unless he’s truly that demented and I’m truly that naïve.”

Aerin’s shoulders rise and fall as she contemplates my theory. “I mean, I guess it’s worth a try? But what if he’s still a jerk after this?”

Excellent question.

Shrugging, I say, “No clue.”

“Nick owes you,” she says, “and you’re way too nice.”

I draw my knees against my chest and settle in my seat. “I’d do the same thing for you if you asked.”

“I would never ask you to take over my lease, nor would I ask you to live with my asshole roommate.” Aerin crosses her legs, head tilted.

I chuckle. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Aerin is quiet for a beat. Too quiet. But her eyes are loud, like there’s something she needs to say and she’s not sure how to say it.

“What?” I ask.

Her lips part for a moment and then she smiles. “I just … I know why you’re doing this.”

“Aerin.”

“I know you,” she continues. “You think if you do him this huge favor, he’s going to—”

I lift a hand, stopping her there. “I know you know I’ve liked him since we were kids, but trust me, this lease thing has nothing to do with that. I’m not dumb enough to believe doing him a favor is going to make him fall in love with me. That’s idiotic. I’m doing this because he asked me to. Because he needed me to. That’s it.”

“Just promise me if things get bad with Sutter, you’ll pack your things and go.”

“Aerin.” I tilt my head, saying her name with force. “You know me better than that.”

She uncrosses her legs, leaning toward me, her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped. I try not to laugh because she reminds me of an HR executive having a stern talking to a wayward employee.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I tell her. “Trust me, I can hold my own with him.”