SUMMER
The smoke hung in the room like weather.
I stood in the doorway and looked at Maddox at the window and tried to find the right opening sentence in a list of possible opening sentences, none of which felt sufficient.
"I didn't know you smoke," I said, finally.
It was the wrong opening. I knew it was the wrong opening the moment it left my mouth. There were better ones. Truer ones. I'm sorry was a better one. Maddox, please was a better one. Logan told you because he wanted to hurt you was the best one, the one that would actually start the conversation we needed to have, and I had not opened with it because some cowardly part of me was still measuring how much of the truth I could give him before I needed to.
Maddox tilted his head against the window frame.
He drew on the cigar
