He gave me a stiff nod.And then, after a moment, “I boxed everything up.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
He didn’t say anything.But he didn’t move either.And then he said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.Yeah, I’m okay.”
For a few seconds, he stared at me.And then he moved into the house and disappeared into his office.I caught the door with my leg and motioned for John-Henry and Emery.
True to his word, Darnell had packed up all my stuff.It was all labeled too, which gave Emery an instant boner.With my arm in a sling, I couldn’t carry much, so I mostly told them what to do.Emery tried to ignore me, but he did that thing where he got angrier and angrier and quieter and quieter, so that was awesome.And John-Henry just rolled with it until he finally said, “Knock it off, Gray.”
It was all done in less than an hour.And then, somehow, I was standing in the kitchen, just me and Darnell, alone.
“Did you want to take a look around?”Darnell said in that same stiff, polite voice.“I don’t think I missed anything, but you can check.”
“I trust you,” I said.
He folded his arms across his chest and looked off, away from me.
“I wanted to talk, actually.If you have a minute.”
“I need to get back to work.”
“Please.”
A hint of color rose behind his beard, but he still wasn’t looking at me when he said, “Now you want to talk, so I have to talk.But when I was worried about you, when I wanted to come see you in the hospital, that wasn’t convenient for you.I guess you didn’t have time between having every male nurse in that hospital jerk you off.”
I burst out laughing.After a moment, a smile touched Darnell’s mouth.Barely there.But his eyes came back to me.
“I missed you,” I said.My eyes felt hot as I corrected myself.“I’m going to miss you.”
His mask slipped.It was only a moment, but the raw pain there was worse than I’d expected, and this time, I was the one who had to look away.Through the back door, I could see a wedge of sky above the houses behind us.Birds flew in a ragged vee, and it made me think of a needle pulling dark thread.
“It’s funny,” I said.“If I hadn’t been so—so fucking selfish, none of this would have happened.The case, I mean.If I hadn’t been so fixated on Tip.”
“They said you found that boy who killed him.Emery said they have the knife with his fingerprints on it.”It sounded like it cost Darnell to say, “That was a good thing, what you did.”
“Was it?I don’t know.For Tip, I guess.It doesn’t feel like it.It feels like a long string of fuckups, and something good eventually came out of it.”I adjusted my sling.“I’ve been doing a lot of reading.Okay, not reading so much.But I’ve been watching all these TikTok videos.”
Darnell groaned.“Gray.”
Laughing, I said, “Bro, it’s basically the same thing.”He didn’t say anything, and after several seconds, I fiddled with my sling again as I said, “I think I’m, like, a narcissist.”
“Oh my God,” Darnell said.I flashed a look at him in time to see him roll his eyes.“You’re not a narcissist.”
“Uh, yeah, I think—”
“No, you’re not.”Then he cracked that tiny smile again.“I bet you wish you were, though.”
For a few seconds, I couldn’t say anything.And then—more of a squawk than I would have liked—“Darnell, what the fuck?”
“You can be pretty self-absorbed,” Darnell said, “but you’ve been dealing with a lot.Believe it or not, you can also be kind and thoughtful and a wonderful partner.When you don’t have your head up your ass.”
I grinned.“You know narcissists love it when you tell them good things about themselves.”
That made him laugh, and some of the hollowness faded from his eyes.He seemed to be considering me again, seeing me like I’d been away for a long time.That was fair; maybe I had.Maybe he had too.
“Do you remember when you sent me flowers?”I hadn’t meant to say it; the words flowed out of me, and I found myself following them.“The first time, I mean.When Emery broke my nose.”
