And he had broken their best friend’s heart.

He rang the doorbell.

He heard a voice shouting, “Come on in!”

Dare and Quinn’s was exactly as he would have imagined if he had tried to picture it when they left school. Organized, beautiful, comfortable, and warm. A bit madcap, smelling like incense and candle wax.

And packed with books, with art on every wall.

Jack wiped his hands on his pants again as he stepped through the door. Long, meticulously organized bookshelves lined the hall, and on the opposite wall were family portraits and candid snapshots: Daisy, his goddaughter, when they first brought her home after the adoption came through, and then Julian, carried by Quinn’s sister, with Dare’s dark skin and Quinn’s unruly curled hair. Pictures of family by blood and family of choice: Meg and Darius as kids, grinning into the camera; Jack and Quinn caught reading—Quinn actually studying their coursework, and Jack lost in one of his dog-eared fantasy novels—side by side when they roomed together.

“Back here!” Dare called from the kitchen. They’d invited him over, texting after he’d dropped the kids off, knowing that he would be nervous to leave Will in particular. He’d agreed, missing them terribly, but then...

He kept waiting for Dare to hate him.

Dare had been brave, and Jack had been a coward.

Jules was more than big enough, now, to sit without a high chair. He had paper and crayons in front of him, and an almost empty plate of cookies. Jack grabbed the half that Jules was about to drop on the floor, just for something to do, and then stood there, awkwardly, before he shoved it in his mouth. That parental habit of clearing every plate; the habit of not wanting to waste any food.

The cookie was wet. How nice.

Dare was bustling at the stove, adding finishing touches to what was sure to be a complicated dinner.

“Go ahead.” He gestured with one slender and delicate hand at the table.

Jack sat.

There were a few moments of silence.

He stuffed his mouth with another cookie.

Oh God.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spent any time together since he and Meg had decided to divorce. Of course, Dare and Quinn had been told right away. And they were good to him, even though—even though they knew the reasons why. But Jack felt a tightness in his stomach, here in this warm place where he and Meg and the kids had shared meals so many times, pots of sweet Café Cubano over long conversation, and he hardly knew what to do with himself.

He was broken.

He was a fucking idiot.

“Glad you could come, hon.”

His eyes widened, “Thanks. Um, me too.”

Silence. Dare stirred a pot.