“I'm good.”
“Troy.”
“I said I'm good, Declan.”
“When's the last time you had a real meal that wasn't out of an airport vending machine?”
He looked at the ceiling. “I don't know. Yesterday, maybe.”
I turned toward the kitchen before I could stand there any longer cataloging how much weight he'd lost. “Sit down. I'll make you food.”
“You don't have to do that.”
“I know I don't have to.”
“Then don't.”
“Sit down.”
He made a sound that was pure frustration, but I heard him drop onto the couch. I pulled out the ingredients and started building a sandwich that had actual substance to it, turkey and cheese and the good bread Mara had badgered me into buying. I could feel Troy watching me from the living room, his gaze a steady weight between my shoulder blades.
I finished the sandwich, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and walked back into the living room. He was sprawled against the cushions with his head tipped back, looking more worn out than he had at the airport, which I hadn't thought was possible. Ihanded him the plate and the bottle. He took them and looked at the food like he was deciding whether accepting it meant conceding a point.
“Eat,” I said.
“Bossy.”
“Concerned. There's a difference.”
He ate. Three bites in, he stopped trying to look like he wasn't hungry and just ate, putting away the whole sandwich in under two minutes and washing it down with half the beer. Then he leaned back with an expression that was almost human.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Yeah.”
I sat down in the chair across from him and kept the distance deliberate. The couch felt too close, too much like the nights years ago when we'd watched whatever was on and I'd spent the whole time telling myself the way I noticed him was just normal parental concern and not the beginning of a problem I'd spend years trying to bury.
“You planning on telling me why you're actually here?” I asked.
His expression closed up. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Why?”
“Because you haven't been home in six years. You call me out of nowhere saying you need time away, and I'm supposed to just take that at face value.”
“Isn't that what you're doing?”
“I'm asking, aren't I.”
He turned the beer bottle in his hands, picking at the label. “I needed to get out of London for a while. That's the truth.”
“That's a part of the truth.”
“It's the part you're getting tonight.”
I held his gaze. He didn't flinch from it, just stared back with the flat steadiness that meant he'd already decided how much he was going to give me and wasn't interested in renegotiating.
