Looking around, he saw that everything was the same in the loo. The toothbrushes by the pair of sinks were in their separate holders and the pair of paste tubes, one Crest, the other Colgate, were teamed with their appropriate Oral-B partners. The Waterpik on one side was Qhuinn’s.

It had been likewise in the shower, the shampoo and conditioner bottles where they had always been. The bar of soap was just a single in a dish, as they both used Ivory.

Because it was ninety-nine percent pure. Whatever the hell that meant.

At a loss, Blay lowered the toilet seat, rewrapped the bath towel around his body, and sat down. For some reason, it seemed vitally important to cover himself even though no one was in with him—and he remembered Qhuinn sitting in the same place during that bath time right after Luchas had been found.

That was as close as he and his mate had been for the last seven nights.

Oh, physically it had been largely the same, the two of them still sleeping side by side during the day and eating next to each other during meals. And then Blay had stayed on rotation, even as Qhuinn was not cleared to go back into the field yet. He was off until he passed a psych eval.

Which, no surprise, no one had brought up and Qhuinn hadn’t volunteered for.

Through the door, a muffled voice: “I’m going to go work out.”

Blay cleared his throat and spoke louder than normal. “You’re skipping First Meal?”

“I already ate. See you soon.”

A moment later, there was a click of the door out into the hallway shutting.

Blay dropped his head in defeat. At this point, he’d almost have preferred a slam, a stomp, a loud word. Instead, there was just this eerie politeness, an auto-pilot composure that had as much to do with the Qhuinn he knew as a muffler on a Shelby Mustang: His mate had retreated somewhere deep inside his own mind, his body all that remained. He had been like a ghost, floating around the house, skipping meals, working out, spending time alone in Luchas’s room.

He hadn’t said what was in the letter.

Which scared Blay and made him replay his self-blame game. Again and again and again.

Getting to his feet, he walked out of the loo. His intention was to go and get dressed, but he ended up standing at the base of their bed. Both sets of pillows had indents on them and both sides of the sheets and covers had been halved back, the whole thing a tidy mirror image of itself. Usually, their bed was a mess: things on the floor, sheets tangled, duvet backwards or hanging off the headboard. In contrast, this disciplined disorder looked like a Sleep Number bed commercial, a stage set created to suggest that two people, a loving couple, had spent the night together.

And that was accurate, he supposed. He and his mate had been on that mattress together, although he didn’t think either one of them had actually found any REM cycles. Blay certainly hadn’t.

Pivoting to the walk-in closet, he went across and stood among their clothes. As with the pillows and sheets outside, there was a strict division, a his/his demarcation, the left all Blay’s, the right all Qhuinn’s.

It was the same with the bed. Left was his, right was Qhuinn’s.

The arrangement in here hadn’t been a particularly conscious thing, just a yours-and-mine that had made sense. They were pretty close in size, but the styles? Not a thing in common.

He’d have been surprised if the guy had ever worn a loafer in his life. Okay, fine, maybe when Qhuinn had been younger and in his parents’ house.

With duct tape to keep them on, no doubt.

Blay went for his fighting clothes, taking a set of leathers off the hooks that were screwed into the wall. But then he remembered. He was off rotation tonight. Frankly, ever since Luchas’s death, he’d been surprised that he’d been allowed to go out at all, and he supposed that the continued a-okay meant he was doing a good job hiding everything he was feeling.

As a corollary, he was also surprised Qhuinn hadn’t brought up his suspension from the field yet. The fact that there was no fight to get back on rotation from him was scary. Just like his weight loss, and his listless disinterest in anything but the kids. Seriously, thank God for the twins. It was clear that Rhamp and Lyric were keeping their father going, the nightly jobs of giving them baths and changing their clothes and feeding them seeming to consume all of Qhuinn’s attention and focus.

Trying to stop the mind spins, Blay got dressed, pulling on a random button-down, a random set of slacks, the closest sweater. He was putting on socks when he realized he’d decided to leave the house.

So he put on boots, instead of loafers, and then grabbed his North Face jacket and a pair of puffy gloves.

Leaving his room—their room—he headed for the back stairs, and bottomed out in the kitchen. First Meal had been served about twenty minutes before,

so doggen were refilling platters with extra eggs and bagels for service. Blay waved to all of them casually, and tried to appear what he very much was not: He was screaming inside.

As he exited through the garage, he remembered himself and his mate putting on all that snow gear to go out and take care of the shutters. Then he recalled Qhuinn being up on the ladder and stopping to look over his shoulder to the forest—as if he’d sensed something. But there was no way he could have caught the scent of his brother. The wind had been hitting the front of the house. Anything in the trees, especially from that kind of distance? Wouldn’t have carried to them.

Strange.

Blay took the back door out into garden, and as he emerged, he glanced over at the shutters they’d fixed. Then he closed his eyes. It was a while before he was able to dematerialize.

When he re-formed, it was on the front steps of his parents’ house, and he realized that he hadn’t texted them that he was visiting on purpose. The last time he and Qhuinn had had problems, he’d come here—and his return tonight suggested they were back in the soup, as the saying went.

No reason to shine a bright light on that possibility.

Or . . . reality was more like it.

He did get out his phone now, though. It took him three tries to get the breezy, conversational tone right. Then he pressed send, pocketed the Samsung, and rang the—

“Son!” Rocke said as he whipped the door open. “You know you can just walk in.”

His sire was just the same as always, wearing his favorite cardigan, khaki pants, and worn leather slippers. With his pipe in one hand and reading glasses on his nose, he looked like he could have been ordered out of the Dad Catalog.

Blay smiled. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m just paying bills in the den, and mahmen is making bread.” Rocke laughed. “We sound like something in a Hallmark movie. From the fifties.”

Blay tried to imagine he and Qhuinn after the child-rearing was done, the two of them rattling around a big house in a happy decline that was going to take a lot of time, living for visits from the grand-kids.

He would love that. He would really love that.

“So how are you, son,” Rocke said as they embraced. “How’s Qhuinn?”

“We’re as good as you could expect.” And he supposed that wasn’t a lie. “It’s really hard.”

“I can imagine.” Rocke squeezed his shoulder as he hipped the door shut. “We’re so sorry, your mahmen and I.”

As pain lanced through his chest, Blay rubbed his sternum. “Thanks, Dad. Oh, wow, smell that.”

“Your mahmen is making stew as well.”

“You know, I think I’m hungry.”

“Good thing. She’s going to want to feed you. She always does.”

The stuff about the hunger was, in fact, a lie, but he had hope that his mahmen’s cooking would wake his stomach up. But even if it didn’t, he had other familiar comforts to sink into. On the way toward the aroma, his father started in with what Blay had always considered the six o’clock newscast for the family: Updates on his shipbuilding, the cooking course the two of them were taking, a distant cousin’s impending graduation from online human college.

“—really great what they can do with remote learning,” Rocke was saying as they entered the kitchen. “Look who’s here!”

Blay’s mahmen paused in the midst of kneading. “So I sensed! I would have come out, but I’m knee-deep in—well, you get it. Actually, I think it’s more my elbows. Anyway, come give me a kiss, my son.”

It was amazing how he regressed to full-on mahmen’s boy whenever he was around her—and like the dutiful young he was, and had always been, Blay went right over and kissed the cheek that was presented to him.

“Now, go in there.” She pointed across to the refrigerator with a flour-dusted hand. “Second shelf, in a Tupperware container, is the quiche I served for First Meal. There’s fresh fruit next to it, and I want you to make yourself some toast. The bread is over there. You’re too thin.”

Annnnnnd that was how his mahmen communicated: I love you, I’m so sorry about Luchas, I’m worried about you, and I hope you know that you and Qhuinn are welcome here anytime.

Rocke shook his head with a smile and went over to the coffee machine. “You better do what she says, or she’ll make you have seconds before you have firsts.”

“Don’t forget to put a place mat down,” she said as she went back to work with the dough. “And Rocke, that coffee needs to be lighter than we like it. He doesn’t want it too strong.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rocke replied with a wink.

There was light conversation as Blay followed instructions, outing the broccoli-and-cheese quiche and the mixed fruit, making himself up a plate, and sitting down—with toast and a place mat—at the table. As he dug in, he nodded in the right places, laughed when he was meant to, shared surface updates. And yet there was no elephant in the room. At no point did he feel like he couldn’t talk about what had happened, and he didn’t feel like he was hiding how sad he was.

It was the very best commentary on his parents, he supposed: That he could be honest friends with the people who raised him. And there was the temptation to stay over day, mostly because he was so exhausted with the silent tension between him and Qhuinn.