As he walked away, my friend jagged her thumb at Cupid and said, “I think he likes you.” I looked again at his thin body and corduroys and shrugged. After our single drink, my friend and I went home.

The next night, we ended up at the same bar. This time her ex-boyfriend joined us. I was mostly there for support. Amid their tart exchanges, I saw Cupid again, now wingless, wearing beat-up Sperrys and skinny jeans. He sidled up on the bar stool beside me and started asking questions, as if he were tapping around a wall looking for a hollow where he might put in a door.

The conversation grew intimate, and I began to recount my ex-boyfriend woes. He told me about his ex-girlfriend, who had cheated on him while she was in rehab. She had a habit, he said, of pushing him out to sea and then reeling him in when she felt lonely.

As the bar was closing, he flashed me a puckish smile and invited me back to his place to “make out and snuggle.”

Our clothes came off quickly. Staring up at him while we were having sex, a nervous itch came over me. Afterward, he asked me to sleep over and promised to make eggs and bagels in the morning.

I smiled and said, “Sure.”

Instead, I woke up when the sky was still black and slipped out with my boots in hand so as not to wake him. Outside, I was surrounded by old warehouses and leering industrial machinery. I followed the horizon back to my apartment and slid into bed as the sun came up.