Dylan brushed the damp hair from her forehead because... well, just because he could. He’d never wanted that before. The little touches that people shared. The brush of a hand or lips. The small smiles. It really should scare him that he wanted it now with this woman.

“I told Charlie, and then somehow it came out tonight and we ended up discussing it. There was even a whiteboard that Cubby Hawker, he’s—”

“Know him, and he’s a smart man, that one.”

“He’s bossy.”

“Has to be in his line of work.”

He talked for the second time that night about what he thought may be happening to his family, and she listened. He turned her in his arms, and they sank under the steaming water until they were submerged up to their chins.

She was silent when he finished, that fertile mind of hers running through what he’d said and what questions she wanted to ask him.

Dylan looked at the stars high in the sky and wondered if there was anywhere else in the world that had a sky just like the one before him. The twins were silhouetted, the stars sparkling, and if it wasn’t for the hell going on with his family, he’d have to say this was a near perfect moment. Of course Piper played a hand in that; he knew that, just not how he felt about her.

“So this Mickey was who you were talking to in the street before you came into A.S. and gave us the brush-off.”

“I didn’t give you the brush-off, I—”

“Yes, you did.”

“Okay, maybe I did, but I was pretty rattled at that moment so cut me some slack here. There’s also the small matter of me not being safe to be around. I tried to talk to your cousins, Fin, Ted, and Cubby about that, but they brushed it off and said they’d keep an eye on my family instead.”

“That’s the way they work.” She waved a hand about in the water.

“I guess I know that, but still, it’s weird having people on your side when for so long you were it.”

“It?”

“Alone... by choice,” he added.

“Sure, and I get that, but the thing is you’re not in the city now, surrounded by a sea of faces you don’t know, Dylan. Now you have friends and people who care. Family too.”

He rubbed his chin over the top of her head while he thought about what she’d said. Friends. It felt good inside his head. Family too.

“You’re really worried that if you’re seen with us, me and Grace, someone may target us too, aren’t you?”