I don’t know how he gets to me so fast, but he does, his arms coming around me, his body curving over mine, his voice low and soothing in my ear.

“Meg, honey,” he says, and I think, Too soon? But I also don’t think that. I think Reid calling me honey is actually exactly like honey. Slow and thick and golden.

A balm.

I like it so much.

“What happened?”

“Sibby,” I manage, my face against his perfect shirt—why am I always messing up his nice shirts?—and for a few seconds he only holds me tighter, closer.

“Let me take you inside,” he says, and I nod against his chest, probably making the makeup/tears/snot-smearing situation worse, but he doesn’t seem to care. He keeps his arm around me as he lets us into the building, his posture straightening as we enter the lobby, as if he’s daring anyone around to look at me, to judge me for loudly sniffling, for unceremoniously swiping my hands across my face.

Inside he takes my big, sloppy bag and settles me on his too-stiff couch; he shuffles around his kitchen and returns with a cup of tea, holding it in his two hands as though it is his very own heart, and that makes me cry even harder, and for long minutes afterward all he does is sit next to me, his arm around my shoulders strong and warm and soothing, the cup of tea unfurling its steaming comfort into the air from its spot on the coffee table.

And then I tell him about the fight.

He’s quiet for almost all of it, and that’s what I expect—Reid’s always been a good listener, a determined listener, and even as I’m telling it I can feel the way he hears it, the way he hears all the pauses at the hardest parts, the way he feels my breath catch with tension.

But when I tell him about the worst thing—some big “I’m not your real mom” scandal—he stiffens and leans away from me, tipping my face up to his.

“What does that mean?” he says, his brows lowered in concern, or maybe something closer to anger. I feel an unexpected, new pang of sadness, but strangely, it’s not about my parents, about the “scandal” Sibby referred to. It’s about Sibby, Sibby and Reid, about how telling him this story means something forever about how he’ll feel toward her. My very best friend and my . . .

Nope, I scold myself. You only like him, remember?

But I tell him anyway.

“It means that when I was nineteen I found out my father was a serial cheater. And that . . . well. That I was the result of one of his . . . affairs, I guess? Though that’s probably too strong a word for it. I think it was one night.”