IVY♡
I had always been good at reading rooms.
It was something I developed young, growing up with Dexter meant learning early how to read the temperature of a space before you walked fully into it. When he was in a good mood the apartment had a certain looseness to it. When he was not, everything had edges. I had spent twenty four years calibrating myself to my brother’s atmosphere and I knew every version of it.
This version was new.
He was quieter than usual. Not the comfortable quiet of a man at ease in his own home, the other kind. The kind that came from someone thinking too hard about something they had not yet decided to act on. He worked longer hours. Came home later. Sat at dinner and contributed exactly enough to the conversation to avoid questions and not one word more.
I w
