SLOANE
I don’t wantto move.
Rowan’s thumb is tracing a line along my collarbone, slow enough that I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. As I lean into him, breathing in the warm cotton smell of his shirt and letting the noise from the rest of the house settle around us, it feels like home.
The crowd has thinned — some of the guys have headed home or to a bar, some have drifted to the living room, and it’s just Rowan and me left at the table. But even in here, we can hear Luca and Ivy going at it.
They’re arguing about whether a grilled cheese counts as a sandwich or a category of its own. Luca’s voice gets louder every time Ivy points out that by his logic, a quesadilla is also a grilled cheese, and he is taking her refusal to accept his categorization personally.
Our fingers are laced in Rowan’s lap. He’s warm and solid, and his shoulders are down, which is still new enough that I notice it. I like how easy he’s been tonight — laughing, leaning back, and not scanning the room for the next thing that needs him.
The kitchen light is on. From where I’m sitting, I can see the mess we’ve left — the stack of glasses, the tray Luca’s apple pies fused themselves to, and a balled-up napkin near a cluster of beer bottles that nobody’s dealt with.
Rowan’s eyes drift toward it. I feel the shift in his body before he moves — that automatic inventory of what needs doing — and I press my mouth to the hinge of his jaw before he can stand.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
“You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” I unlace my fingers from his and stand. “Sit. Relax for five.”
He smiles, and I start collecting the plates, and when I reach the kitchen Seb is already at the sink, rinsing a glass under the tap. He doesn’t look up when I enter, so I take a second to admire the production line he has going.
I set my stack down on the counter beside him. “You always wash up?”
“Habit.” He shrugs. “We never had a dishwasher.”
We stand there for maybe thirty seconds, him rinsing, me sorting, and the quiet between us easy. His phone buzzes in his back pocket. He pulls it out, reads something, and something crosses his face — anger or maybe grief — before he smooths it away.
“You okay?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just dries his hands. “I’ll be right back.”
And then he’s gone.
I go back out to grab the serving dish, smiling at Rowan on my way past, and I’m reaching for it when Mason stands from the armchair by the window. His hands are already out, beating me to the dish, his lazy grin doing its work.
“I’ve got it,” he says. “Captain’s girl doesn’t clear plates alone.”
Rowan laughs, settled like a man who has decided the world is fine and has stopped bracing for it. So I shrug at Mason and walk toward the kitchen with the plates I’m already carrying, and Mason follows a few seconds behind, glasses chiming softly in his hands.
I set the plates down on the counter and start running hot water into the sink. The pan is going to need to soak, but I can take care of the rest before Rowan and I head out. Mason puts the glasses down next to me.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, reaching for the dish soap.
“I want to.”
I turn the water hotter. Steam rises from the sink. I squeeze soap into it.
“So,” he says.
The ease has gone out of his voice, and I tense but say nothing.
“Harrison Tisdale,” he says.
My hand stays on the tap.
“Who?” I say.
