Doyle offered a very quiet, reflexive laugh at whatever he read on Larkin’s face before picking up one of the forks and absently pushing around the lo mein noodles. “No, she doesn’t live here. Abigail… passed away.” He set the fork back down and put his hands on his knees, staring at an invisible spot on the bare bricks—at some long-ago memory. “About seven years ago.” Doyle turned to Larkin and suddenly sounded panicked as he asked, “What is it?”

Larkin jerked his head and wiped his face with the heel of his hand. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t—for you—to relive that.” He got to his feet.

Doyle grabbed Larkin’s wrist. “Hey. Come on.” His thumb brushed the underbelly of Larkin’s wrist in a profoundly intimate way before he gave a tug. “Please sit.”

Larkin did.

Doyle let go and said, “I can talk about her. But I guess you’d have remembered it differently?”

“As if it’d just happened,” Larkin explained, staring at his gold wingtips.

“I don’t envy you,” Doyle said quietly.

Larkin hastily wiped his face a second time before shaking his head. “Christ. I’m sorry. At work, all that… tragedy is laid out in black-and-white. They know, I know, we can broach the subject together. It’s when I’m caught off guard, sometimes I forget not everyone… reacts the way I would.” He finally looked at Doyle.

“A knee-jerk reaction to protect me?”

“I guess.”

Doyle reached a hand out, caught himself, and returned it to his own knee. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Larkin rewound his conversation with Camila Garcia, pushed Play. My heart is always broken. Somehow, he doubted Doyle was at all okay.

“I adopted Abigail when she was six months old.”

Larkin raised an eyebrow. “By yourself?”

Doyle smiled at the note of interest in Larkin’s tone. “Yup. I really wanted to be a dad.” He picked up one of the egg rolls and took a bite. In between the crunch of the fried food, he asked, “What about you and Noah? Any children?”

“No.” Larkin stabbed some sweet-and-sour chicken with his fork and ate it.

“Don’t want any?” Doyle pressed, polite but curious.

Larkin took another bite. “Noah does.”

“But not you.”

“I’m not parental material.” Bitterly, Larkin added, “Just another thing we disagree on.” He sipped his water. “You didn’t invite me over to hear about how my marriage is falling apart.”

“It’s all right.”

Larkin shook his head. “This must be why you’re single.”

“I’m single because all the hot guys are married,” Doyle corrected as he put a half-eaten egg roll back on the plate. He laughed under his breath and then added, “I really was going to ask you out yesterday. Before I knew you were married, I mean.”

Larkin shot him a disbelieving look. “I was an asshole.”