And then he heard the front door opening again, thank God. Quinn swept in from the front hall, tidy but a bit harried from teaching his college courses at Loyola and fighting city traffic, neatly arranging his jacket on a kitchen chair. Jack heard stomping on the staircase as Daisy—in her clunky combat boots, most likely—went straight to her room after a full day of classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Jules lifted his arms for a hug, and Quinn started to hug him back—and then saw powdered sugar all over his face.

“Oh Christ, Dare, what have you let him eat?”

“Hello to you too.” Quinn glared at him. Dare shrugged, elegant, with an innocent smile. “Just a couple of cookies.”

“A couple! I had two dozen here.” He frowned. “They were for my book club.”

“Jack had some.” Dare kept smiling his serene smile, but with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

“Yeah.” Jack coughed. The one. And a half. A soggy half.

“Ugh, well, if Julian wakes up in the night, he’s all yours, Darius.”

“Yes, my love.”

Quinn crossed to the stove and peered at him, trying to guess how many cookies his husband—who was getting a bit soft around the middle—had eaten himself. “And if you wake up with a sore stomach in the night, you’d better leave me out of that, too.”

“I wouldn’t dream of disturbing you.”

Quinn looked rather fierce for a moment, and Dare put on a look like a dressed-down schoolgirl. And then Quinn cracked, laughing, and kissed him on his sugary mouth.

They were perfect together.

“God, I want that.” Jack hadn’t intended to speak, but the words came out, and he couldn’t get them back in.

Quinn wiped his lips. “Hmm?”

Dare lowered the flame on the stove, turned around, sat, and waited. Jack shrugged and looked away. “I’m sorry, I just—”

“It’s all right, Jack. We did ask you over. And we know what’s going on.” Dare’s face was honest and open in that disconcerting way, just as it always was.

Jack took a breath and kept going. “The way—the way you are together. That thing you have, where you love each other even when you annoy the sh—” He looked down at Jules, wide green eyes staring back. “When you argue. It’s always been—you’re meant to be. And I wanted that.”

“Thought you could have it with Meg, you mean.”

He looked up at Dare, still tall and elegant and striking, even sitting at the table. There was a roughness to his voice, but also an understanding. And it was difficult, jumping right into this conversation, but they had been friends for so long that it flowed out of him.