When I walked out of the kitchen with two steaming bowls of soup, he got up to help me. “Here, I’ll get spoons and chopsticks. I also have a bottle of Sriracha around here. Let’s eat in the living room.”

He came back with all the stuff we needed and a glass of wine for me. After a moment we both sat down, holding our bowls, alternating between bites and slurps. The soup was flavorful and fragrant, and delicious, and as soon as I tasted it, I remembered I hadn’t eaten since my post-workout breakfast early this morning. We both ate in silence for a couple of minutes before Easton spoke.

“Thank you for this. All I’ve had all day were a few canapés, and until now had not realized I was starving.”

I angled my head, confused. “I thought you were eating with your mentee.”

He frowned at that and went in for another mouthful of noodles. He shook his head as he chewed. “I had to cancel. It was my grandpa’s birthday today and my mother had a luncheon thing, so I went there this afternoon.”

From the way he spoke about his parents I knew Easton wasn’t exactly close to them, but he did seem to see a lot of his family. There always seemed to be an event he had to make an appearance at.

“How was the party?”

He lifted a shoulder with a resigned expression on his face. “My mother’s parties are always flawless and a little boring.” He gave me a lopsided smile, but it wasn’t totally unhappy. “My dad’s an ass and not really interested in any of us, but my mom tries to at least get the family together. It was good to see my grandpa and my sister too.” I realized it was maybe the most he’d said about himself or his family that didn’t include some self-deprecating comment and I wondered if part of all that was about me.

“You almost never talk about your family. Is it because you think that I’m not interested?”

He widened his eyes like he was thinking about it for the first time. “Honestly? My family in some ways feel parallel to my life. I’m in town working this job and that is sort of foreign to them, even to my grandpa, who’s so supportive. It’s almost like my real life is one thing and I dip into this other world I belong to too.” He looked closely at me for a moment, a vulnerability there that I was loathe to betray, and as if he was reading my mind, said, “You are always firmly in the ‘real’ part of my life, Professor Denis.”