Park cut the ignition and they sat quietly in the driveway of their home, listening to the clicks of the cooling engine. Cooper had filled him in on the little bit more Neil had revealed about the Cranes funneling money into a larger, violent organization.

“From what Neil described, it feels very likely that Arthur was also being blackmailed by James,” Park said, unbuckling his seat belt. “The intimidation techniques, the insistence that he and Genevieve flee.”

“Blackmailing him over what, I wonder,” Cooper said. “The embezzlement? Or is James the reason for the embezzlement in the first place?”

“I think the only way to figure that out is to find what that key you found in his hotel room unlocks. We could go back to the zoo tomorrow. Get a better look around.”

Cooper hummed an acknowledgment. “Sounds good.” With the car off, the air was getting rapidly cooler, and he ran his fingers through the condensation on the inside of the window, making four straight lines down. “Do you think the Cranes are wolves?”

“I don’t know,” Park said. “I don’t recognize the names.”

“Hmmm.” It was well past sunset by now, but the moon was nearly full and Cooper could easily see the tacky Halloween skeleton hanging from the porch eave, swaying in the wind; the silhouette of their house with its erratic add-ons; the unfinished porch; the shadow of a package that probably contained another absurd item Park had ordered to class up the joint. In short, their life together. The mashing together of two different people from two different worlds who had sort of just fallen into each other, wholly unexpectedly, unwillingly, uncontrollably.

In some ways, their entire relationship had felt like tripping down a cliff side. Shoved over the edge into the unknown, stumbling over all sorts of obstacles and pitfalls that hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot to slow them down, caught, as they were, in the slipstream of gravity. Pulled by a momentum so powerful, so inevitable, that it was never even an option to stop falling. The only concern—whether they would hit the bottom on their feet or their faces.

Just two good years? No. No.

“Is everything okay?” Park asked. “You seem...distracted tonight.”

Cooper turned to see Park watching him with concern, one hand on the car door handle, eyes collecting stray moonlight until they appeared reflective.

“Neil and I used to have sex,” Cooper blurted out. Well, he could have eased into that with slightly more grace, but at least it was out there and he couldn’t take it back.

Park blinked, eclipsing twin moons. “Ah.”

“Sorry. I just wasn’t sure if—I didn’t want you to feel like I was keeping things from you. Is that—” Okay, Cooper almost said like an idiot. “Does that upset you?”

“I don’t think it’s my right to be upset,” Park said evenly.

“That’s not an answer.”