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Marlowe can't seem to help but laugh, looking a little embarrassed.

"I doubt it. I mean—I've never really thought about it, but there's no way I'm good enough for that. And to be honest, I just like writing for myself. I guess maybe someday I might realize 'hey, this is actually pretty good'—but right now, I think I'm okay with just the stress of my job without having to worry about trying to get published as well."

They laugh again—but from the way they glance at the typewriter, you wonder if they're starting to wonder what might be possible in the future.

You finish eating, and Marlowe goes quickly to check on the dogs—and then, at long last, they open up the large cage taking up nearly a full wall of their room and introduce you to their two ferrets. It's not long before you're both sitting on the bed with a ferret in your lap—Marlowe tells you the one squirming around in your arms is called Mr. Wiggles, while the one sniffing at their hands is Queen Terror. Mr. Wiggles certainly lives up to his name; you can only imagine what Queen Terror must have done to deserve hers.

After a while of playing with the ferrets, you hear the front door close, and Marlowe tells you it must be their roommate coming home.

"He's retired now, but he does a lot of volunteering," Marlowe tells you. "He offered to come to the Town Hall with me this morning, but I didn't want to cut into his schedule. Besides, I did kind of just want to be by myself. But he's helped me a lot in the past. He's actually been there for me for a long time."

They pause for a moment, and for the first time in a couple of hours, they seem to be thinking about more than just food or ferrets.

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