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"Most humane," Hakeem repeated.

"The alternative is boiling." Antonio held the second crab steady and repeated the stroke—same precision, efficiency, same unsettling calm. "Which is slower. The animal doesn't know what's happening at first. The water is warm, then it's hot, and by the time the body understands what's wrong," he set the knife down and shrugged one shoulder. "It's already too late. This is better. It’s painless, quick, and clean."

He said it while holding a knife and looking directly at Hakeem.

"You don't like crab?" Antonio asked casually.

Hakeem realized his hand was still on the wall. His palm felt clammy. He released it. "I've never had it raw."

"Then you'll try something new tonight."

Antonio turned back to the counter and began separating the shell from the body with his fingers, working with a deftness that suggested intimacy with the anatomy. His hands were steady, and his face was relaxed. He moved with a practiced ease that was almost hypnotic. It was ordinary, domestic, and Hakeem knew it shouldn’t have felt any different from watching Antonio chop onions or measure rice.

Hakeem stood in the doorway and continued to watch him. He thought about not knowing he was in danger until it was too late. About the way Antonio's hands looked when they were being exact and precise.

Hakeem didn't stay in the kitchen. He went upstairs to change, peeling off the shirt that still smelled like stage smoke and fake blood, and stood in his room for a minute longer than necessary, letting the image of Antonio's hands on the knife settle into the place where he stored things he didn't know what to do with yet.

By the time he came back down, the kitchen was clean. The crabs were in a bowl of lime and chile in the refrigerator, already becoming something else. The knife was drying on the rack. Antonio was gone.

Hakeem heard the screen door creak from the front of the house.

He moved through the front room, past the bookshelf, past the couch, and looked toward the porch.

Antonio was in the old wicker chair, dragged into a better angle, one long leg stretched out in front of him and the other bent. He had a glass beside his foot on the low iron table and a book face down in his lap, one finger holding the place. He was wearing a black T-shirt and dark lounge pants, nothing dramatic, though the porch light picked out the rough line of his jaw and the gleam of his chain at his throat. His glasses were off.

He glanced up as the screen door gave its complaining little whine.

“You’re late,” Antonio said.

Hakeem stepped out and let the door close behind him. “You’re observant.”

Antonio’s mouth shifted in that devastating way Hakeem was memorizing. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”

“It wasn’t. Move over.”

“There are two chairs.”

“Then emotionally move over.”

Antonio let out something that might have been a laugh and tipped his chin toward the empty chair. Hakeem dropped into it harder than necessary and stretched his legs out in front of him. Every part of his body felt theatrically used. His throat was dry. One shoulder ached. His pride had been in worse condition before, though only by a little.

Antonio turned his head slightly, taking him in. “Bad night?”

Hakeem gave a humorless laugh. “I got promoted from bartender to backup corpse.”

Antonio waited.

That was one of the irritating things about him. He could make silence feel like an invitation instead of a dead end. Hakeem often found himself filling it before he had decided whether he wanted to.

“Tabbi had me covering this tiny part in one of the upstairs scenes,” he said. “Some idiot with a flashlight and a family curse who dies against a wall in under four minutes.”

Antonio looked toward the street, thoughtful. “That sounds efficient.”

“It was humiliating.”

“You were dying against a wall. Humiliation seems built in.”

Hakeem faced him. “Thank you. That’s exactly the support I needed in this vulnerable hour.”