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I turn slowly.

Nate lifts one hand in a cheerful little wave, cracker still between his fingers. “Hi,” he says. “I’m the brother.”

Dalton looks back at me. I can see the question in his face, though he doesn’t ask it out loud.

I step aside because there’s no graceful way out of this now. “Dalton,” I say, already feeling the night rearrange itself without my permission. “This is Nate.”

Dalton enters with the takeout bag. “Nate,” he says, offering his hand. “Dalton Price.”

Nate shakes it, still smiling like Christmas has arrived early and brought gossip. “The Chinese food guy,” he says.

Dalton looks at me.

I stare very hard at the wall.

Then Dalton says, perfectly calm, “Tonight, yes.”

And for some stupid, exhausted, nauseous reason, I almost laugh.

Chapter Fifteen

DALTON

Maggie opens the door wider, but she doesn’t look happy about it.

That is reasonable, considering I’m standing in her hallway with Chinese takeout she did not technically ask me to bring.

Behind her, a man I assume is her brother watches me with open interest and very little shame about it. He’s younger than Maggie, but not by much, with the same eyes and an easier smile. He has a cracker in one hand, as though he has been interrupted halfway through a serious household investigation.

For a second, nobody says anything.

Then he lifts the cracker in greeting. “Hi,” he says. “I’m the brother.”

Maggie closes her eyes.

I look at her first, because I have learned by now that if Maggie looks that pained, I’m probably about to step into something.

She gives me nothing except a tight little smile.

So I step inside. “Dalton Price,” I say, offering my hand.

Nate takes it. “The Chinese food guy.”

“For tonight,” I say.

His grin widens. “I respect a man who arrives with a function.”

“Nate,” Maggie says.

“What? I’m being welcoming.”

“You’re being weird.”

“I contain multitudes.”

He says it so easily that I understand, immediately, why Maggie loves him. He brings noise into the room in a way that doesn’t feel careless. It feels practiced. Like he has learned that if he keeps things light enough, nobody has to ask the serious questions too soon.

I glance at Maggie again.