“I think it’s like that for a lot of people.”
“Yes, well, most people also have a general sense of how to read a room.” Larkin massaged his temples for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing.”
“I know. But I missed you while you were in California and didn’t sleep well and I’ve been particularly irritable this week and extremely emotional today and it’s only—” Larkin looked at his watch before raising his head. “—10:59 in the morning. I shouldn’t be using my deductive reasoning on you. You’re not a suspect or a witness or a… a cipher to be decoded. You’re my boyfriend, and I need to learn better boundaries.”
Doyle studied Larkin for a long time. “Evie, I know part of this is compulsion—that you really can’t help it. And the other part… I know it’s because you care about me.”
Larkin quickly said, “Yes. I do.”
“But you piecing it together isn’t the same as—” Doyle faltered. He looked away briefly, squinting as he studied the sunshine peeking through the dense boughs overhead. When he met Larkin’s steady gaze again, Doyle said, “There’s a lot there that I’m not ready to put words to yet. I know it’s stupid because it happened a long time ago—”
“Trauma is not stupid,” Larkin interrupted. “Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re supposed to beover itsimply because an arbitrary number of years have passed.” Larkin bit down on the candy and swallowed the broken pieces. He said, more gently, “I’m not trying to pry information out of you. I just need you to know that I’m not ignoring you like everyone else has.”
Doyle touched Larkin’s hair, fixing a bit of his part that’d been tousled by the breeze. He smiled and said, “Believe me when I say you listen a little too well sometimes.”
“What does that mean.”
“It means….” Doyle shrugged and admitted, “It means I’m embarrassed. I’m not sure how to deal with knowing you’ve picked up on some shit I thought I buried two decades ago. And I need you to let it be while I figure myself out.”
“People don’t want to know.”
Doyle nodded understandingly and echoed, “But I do.” He settled his hands on his hips and puffed his cheeks as he blew out a long breath.
“May I say something inappropriate,” Larkin asked.
“Sure.”
“Being an addict sucks.”
Doyle laughed, a sort of knee-jerk response. “It does.”
“I thought, after managing my associations alone since 2002, it’d be nice to have some help. All I got out of Xanax was a bad habit.”
“Bad habits can be unlearned.”
“I think about being high a lot.”
“It lessens with time.”
“The cravings are the worst part.” Larkin looked up. “Do you still feel those.”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you do to make them stop.”
“What do I not do?” Doyle countered wryly.
Larkin considered Doyle’s daily behaviors, how he seemed to fill every spare moment with jogging, yoga, reading, painting, sudoku, or baseball. What did he not do, indeed.
Doyle broke the quiet between them. “They say gardening’s a good hobby.”
“We live on the fourth floor.”
“That’s nothing your big beautiful brain and a little New York ingenuity can’t solve.” Doyle’s smile was back—a touch more gentle than usual, but it nonetheless lit up his entire face. He opened the back door of the Audi, collected his portfolio bag and Larkin’s accordion file for the person who was technically still Janie Doe, and tilting his head in the direction of the way they’d come, Doyle said, “Let’s go talk to Mia’s family.”
Larkin accepted his case file and fell into step with Doyle, walking along the cracked and uneven sidewalk, gnarled roots of the old trees displacing slabs of asphalt in a battle to reclaim what once belonged to Mother Nature. Larkin said suddenly, “I don’t know anything about gardening.”
