Page 595 of End Game

Micah exhales another small laugh.

Three days ago, people who have known him his entire life made his place in their family conditional.

Nothing any of us say or do can undo that.

I also cannot promise that the people inside this house will never hurt him, disappoint him, or make mistakes. Five adults are too complicated for promises that stupid.

What I can do is make sure he never has to earn the same chair twice.

Next Thursday, his miniature will be beside the others.

His dice tray will be where he expects it.

There will probably be wild card pizza because apparently we have committed ourselves to that culinary offense indefinitely.

And whether Micah arrives happy, angry, grieving, exhausted, or too quiet even for himself, nobody will ask him to prove he belongs before we roll initiative.

He already does.

Micah finishes his cigarette and stays against me after it burns out.

I keep my arm around him.

Neither of us says anything else.

We don't need to.

Chapter forty-four

Hit Points

Ronan

It has been twelve days since Micah told his parents the truth.

I know that because I counted once, three days ago, and have managed not to count again since.

There is a difference between paying attention and monitoring someone so closely they begin to feel observed instead of loved. I know that distinction better than most people, mostly because being on the wrong side of it makes my skin crawl.

So I have not asked Micah how he is every morning.

I have not checked whether he slept unless there was an actual reason to ask. I have not followed him onto the porch every time he goes outside to smoke, or watched every expression after his phone vibrates, or asked who is texting him when he flips it facedown.

He has gone to work.

He has cooked dinner.

He has played two campaign nights, including one where he spent twenty minutes arguing that Dex's bard could not use Prestidigitation to make a severed head more aesthetically pleasing because the spell was not designed for cosmetic reconstruction.

He has gone to bed with Dex. Gone to bed with Cami. Gone to bed with Dex and Cami. Fallen asleep on the couch with Cami against him. Spent an entire Saturday afternoon helping Griffin fix something in the garage that I am fairly certain Griffin could have fixed alone.

He has laughed.

Not as much.

But he has.

He has also gone quiet in the middle of conversations when nobody said anything wrong. Once, I watched him stand at the kitchen counter staring at a message for almost five minutes before locking his phone and going back to chopping vegetables.