He had also needed—wanted desperately—that kind of affection, and he had thought he had it, but Jack—and then Lexi tried, but he couldn’t—

“Don’t you look an absolute misery.” She was smirking at him, those thin red lips settling into their typical wry shape, but he saw some concern, there, too.

He did not want to talk about it. “Missing Jasper, I guess.”

“Hmm.” She stretched out, feet propped up on the Victorian footstool in front of the fire. “I don’t know why. I’m relieved to have Hyacinthe out from underfoot.”

Phil snorted, head still in a book of poetry. “Right. Must be why I found you cleaning out the linen cupboard.”

“Hey, I clean!” She wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes.”

“Darling.” He looked over the pages, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his dark, patrician nose. “If you’re cleaning, that means something must be desperately wrong.”

She balled up the stem from her cocktail cherry and threw it at him. “All right, fine. I miss her.”

He gave her a little smile, and she smiled back and winked.

They were too sweet, in their caustic way. It made Theo sad.

Lonely.

“Ugh,” Genni muttered at Theo. “I can hardly bear to look at you. What on earth is wrong?”

He looked away, stared into the fire.

“Do you know who I spotted jogging around campus like a madman the other day?”

Theo’s eyes snapped up at the sound of Phil’s voice—always calm with an unnerving quality of silence, with something deadly running under the surface.

“Who, love?” Genni swirled her cocktail.

“Jack.” Phil met Theo’s gaze with a piercing intensity. “Gardner.”

Genni’s jaw dropped open, her pretty face looking bizarre with surprise. And then she turned to Theo. There was pity in her eyes. And a solid grudge. “Theo...”

“I have nothing to say on that subject.”

“Funny.” An angry tone, her face like a pit bull’s. “I have rather a lot to say.”

“Well...” He shifted, placed his glass down. “Don’t.”

She wouldn’t let it go; he could tell already. “Is that why—”

“Genni—”

“Did you talk to him?”

He closed his eyes. Of course she knew, she always knew everything—she could probably see Jack Gardner’s shadow cast over him like a shroud. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And...” He thought about that email, and his response, and how idiotic he probably was to want and hope and—“Nothing.”

“Sure looks like nothing.”

“Gen—”

“I should have castrated that man when I had the chance.”

“Look...” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. “Just. I’m not—I won’t do anything. But—Jasper’s rooming with his kid, and—and we should probably—”

“What?”

He was staring at the floor, eyes blurry, his silky hair between his fingers. “I think we need to learn to get along.”

“Get along.” Genni’s voice was low and condescending, and he felt immense gratitude that it wasn’t him that she was really angry with. At least not anymore.