I lean against the counter, and watch Locke move through his space. He’s so comfortable and relaxed here, it’s obvious that he loves his home. Something about that unexpectedly squeezes my chest, I think because I've spent so much time seeing him in clubhouses and bars and parking lots, and not once have I ever stopped to wonder who he is when nobody's looking.
When he’s being this man, this version of him. The one opening drawers and pulling fine china plates from shelves and asking whether I want green tea with dinner, like we're a couple, instead of two people who accidentally fell into each other's lives at exactly the wrong moment.
Or maybe exactly the right one.
Thirty minutes later, we're sitting at a long dining table beside the windows, with sushi spread between us. The ocean h
