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When I was finished scrubbing the burnt shit off the bottom of the coffee pot, I put a fresh one on and made sure the auto shut-off was turned on.

It helped.

To have tasks to do.

To keep my mind from wandering.

Not to Matt’s death, where it belonged, but to his widow.

And the way her hot tears soaked through my shirt as I held her. How her arms went from pressed against my chest to wrapped tightly around me as she purged all the pain she’d been hiding during the service.

Then how she’d watched me with pinched brows, like there was something confusing about being taken care of as I put a blanket over her, as I pulled off her shoes.

I mean, it probably was new to her.

I’d known Matt a long time. I’d seen him with women. I knew how good he was at complimenting and showering affection. For about a week or two, a month max, before he got bored.

No one had been more shocked than me when he’d said he was getting married. Matt? With one woman forever? It didn’t compute.

I could see how he could get a woman to agree to marry him in those early days. How she would think she’d hit the lottery. But it couldn’t have been long after the wedding before he lost interest in the love bombing. And his other side would have been more openly on display.

The constant get-rich-quick schemes. The selfishness. The inability to take responsibility. The way he let his family sway his decisions and behavior.

I knew from Matt that Blair had been going to therapy, had been dogging him to go with her to couples counseling. She’d clearly been trying. It must have taken a lot for her to decide she was finally done.

The reality was, she’d likely been in a relationship with a grown child instead of a partner. She’d probably not only been handling all her own usual shit, but his on top of it all.

Being taken care of had to be a foreign concept to her.

I squashed down the little desire to do that for her, to be the partner she deserved.

It wasn’t my place.

It never had been.

It never would be.

“So, you said you had something—” I started, but cut off when I looked over.

Zen had removed his taco blanket and was sitting in a pair of tight-ass pants and nothing else.

“Zen, the fuck are you wearing? Are those leggings?”

“Men’s compression fitness leggings,” he said.

“You don’t work out.”

“I went through a phase where I was going to start. Got the clothes, the gear, the gym membership. Then…”

He waved a hand, as if saying ‘you know the deal.’

And I did.

Zeno was great at being interested in a project. He wasn’t great at actually following through with the task.

It was kind of a miracle that he stayed interested in computers and hacking like he had. Because he’d started and quit no fewer than five sports, twenty hobbies, and four different career paths before the Family decided his interest in computers would be useful and started hiring him for those sorts of jobs.

If only he could get obsessed with dishes or laundry.