“Morning,” Larkin answered. He got himself a cup of coffee from the counter, a protein bar from the cupboard, and took a seat across from Doyle. He wrapped his hands around the mug and studied the lazy, counterclockwise spiral from stirring in cream for approximately twenty-three seconds before Larkin heard Doyle set aside his pen. He glanced at it. Like others scattered around the home, this pen cap had been chewed. Larkin looked up.
Doyle had one eyebrow raised in question.
“I feel like I should apologize to you,” Larkin stated.
“For what?”
“For… leading you on. Last night.”
Doyle folded his hands on the tabletop.
“It’s not that I’m not interested,” Larkin continued.
—but when you look at me….
“I’m just trying to make sense of my life.”
—how do I say yes….
“And I don’t know how long it will take.”
—when you’re nothing but a mystery?
Doyle reached a hand across the table and pulled one of Larkin’s away from his mug. It was dry, warm, his calluses familiar. “More than anything, I want to be your friend.”
Larkin whispered, “You are.”
A car alarm chirped from the street below.
The window unit one floor above them kicked on with a worrying grind.
Doyle squeezed Larkin’s hand, smiled. “Don’t apologize.” He let go, pushed his chair back, and stood. “How about something more substantial for breakfast?”
Larkin slid his fingers over the tabletop, lingering on the spot still warm from Doyle’s hands. He swallowed, imagining the lump in his throat to be the split pit of a peach, mold infecting him all the way down, rotting him from the inside out. Larkin quickly passed his other hand across his face and dabbed at his nose before noticing that Doyle had left the sudoku puzzle half-finished and had instead been drawing in the bottom righthand corner when he’d entered the room. Larkin reached, turned the book around, and was met with a startling, realistic execution of himself in ballpoint pen. He was in profile, seemingly studying himself in the mirror, and adjusting his tie in the reflection. Larkin looked over his shoulder at the direct view of the french doors and into the bedroom beyond.
He glanced at Doyle.
The other man stood sideways at the counter, holding a bowl and studying Larkin in return.
Pulling back the right sleeve of his suit coat to check his watch, Larkin stood and said, “I have to go.” He pocketed the protein bar and moved away from the table.
Doyle set the bowl down with a clatter and—gently—took Larkin by the elbow, stopping him. He asked, “The mother you’re going to speak to… she’s the same woman who called during the Gorman case, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Doyle was contemplative, silent for eight seconds that could have been eight years, the gravity around him was so great. Finally, he smiled, but for the first time since they’d met, Larkin saw the crack, the crumble, the broken inner self reflected back, like viewing Doyle through a funhouse mirror. And it wasn’t like he’d been privy to an audience from the “real Doyle,” because the real Doylewasthe man standing right there.
It was more like, for a split second, Larkin had simply seen more—the part of himself that Doyle buried deep down underneath the light and sunshine and fool’s gold personality.
“My son was a victim of homicide too, Detective.”
Thepat,pat,patof rain on the windshield.
“I self-medicated after losing Abigail.”
“Be gentle,” Doyle suggested. “And… listen to her.”
CHAPTER FIVE
