It had been so long since anyone offered her condolences, she didn’t expect the raw, sharp pain it woke in her chest. “It was… thanks.”
“I’d meant to call,” he added and stopped talking abruptly. Probably because he never did and didn’t know how to explain it.
She could say that she wished he had, which she did back then. But it was all so long ago and everything was different now.
The lines around his eyes were barely perceptible, and if she’d had to guess she’d say he was thirty-five at most. Not nearing forty like her. His eyes were harder, but they were still the kind she could get lost in.
“How are your folks doing?” she asked. It seemed an innocuous enough question, but it caused him to scowl again.
He shrugged and scanned the room again, and didn’t reply right away. As far as L
