The prospect of sitting across from Charles, sharing my ideas with him, turns my stomach further. Would it be disloyal to Jane? If the sale goes through, will Jane stay at the club with Charles at the helm? We never see the current owner, so there’s no reason to assume Charles would have any kind of presence, but still . . .

The door grinds with the turning of Jane’s key, followed by the scrape over the doormat. The keys jangle as Jane hangs them on the hook in the hall, and his heavy footsteps make their way toward my room. I sit up against the headboard, closing the folder and putting it aside.

Jane trudges in, toeing off his shoes as he crosses the threshold into my room, not bothering to avoid the squeaky floorboard. I search his face to try to get a read on his feelings. All I see is the deliberate, flat look that greeted me the day I moved in three years ago. The familiar expression is worse than tears.

Without a word, he crosses to my bed and lies beside me, resting his head on my shoulder. I kiss the top of his head, a few inches away from the still-pink scar left by the accident, then rest my cheek against the spot.

I don’t know how this happened, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get to the bottom of it.

CHAPTER

16

I keep track of Jane’s viewing habits on our various streaming accounts from my work computer. In the days that follow Charles’s text, he mainlines Werner Herzog’s entire catalog before consuming the David Attenborough–narrated version of Planet Earth. I let that go without comment. When he starts re-viewing the same program with Sigourney Weaver’s voice-over, however, I threaten to change all our passwords and recruit Ming to take him out for coffee.

Over the weekend, I learn more than I’d like about the use of bovine bile to control the spread of coral-eating starfish, but I’m cautiously optimistic. He performs at Meryton and, on Sunday, tears himself away from the Discovery Channel to help research a few ramen places for next week’s visit from my cousin. By the time Monday rolls around, Jane’s entertainment selections still favor the informative variety, but he’s getting out of the apartment for more than just work, has come climbing with me twice, and ventures up to Manhattan to join Ming and me for lunch on Wednesday.

“I’ll forget him,” Jane announces, placing his napkin beside his plate. “Everything will go back to the way it was before.”

I say nothing, but I’m helpless against the incredulous look that draws across my face.

“You doubt me,” he says tightly. “Don’t. I may think of him as the most pleasant man I’ve ever met, but that’s all. I’m not going to be bitter about it. With a little time . . .”