He almost smiles. Almost. It gets to his eyes but not his mouth and somehow that’s more devastating than the real thing.
“What about Mason?” I say. Because Mason is one floor down, alone, in a new apartment in a new city, and whatever I think about Nick sleeping on my couch, there is a five-year-old boy who shouldn’t be by himself tonight.
Nick pauses. I see him calculating, Mason alone downstairs versus Mason here. The threat versus the disruption. The logistics of being one man split between two children in two apartments and a woman who won’t let him close enough to make any of it simple.
“I’ll bring him up,” he says. “If that’s—”
“Mia’s room,” I say. “There’s a sleeping bag in her closet. The purple one. He can sleep on her floor.”
Nick looks at me.
I look back.
“What,” I say.
“Nothing
