“But it wouldn’t be impossible. People have . . . preferences.”

“Matty pointed us to Allure, and the feed from the security camera doesn’t show Regina. But let’s show Matty that picture of Mark and see if we can get confirmation.”

“And if it is Mark? What next? He’s not going back to that apartment.”

“We do what we always do.”

Shaw nodded; he was still staring out the window.

For a moment, North was desperate. He needed to say something. He had to say something. And he ran through possible scenarios, trying to predict Shaw’s reactions. But everything was off between them. Some of that, North now understood, was because of Regina, because she had spun all of Shaw’s dials like a kid grabbing a radio. And some of that was because North didn’t know his partner as well as he thought he had. But the real reason North didn’t say anything, the reason he didn’t just ask, didn’t just put the question into a few simple words, had two layers: up above the waterline of North’s conscious mind, it was an invasion of Shaw’s privacy and none of North’s business. But below, in the dark waters, it was something else. And it terrified North that he didn’t know what it was.

The sudden, dizzying urge to tell Shaw about boxing, to tell him all of it, hit North like a wind catching the edge of a kite. It twisted him around, tossed him, yanked him off the ground so that when he punched the brakes at the next light, his foot was spongy. And North had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep a manic laugh from breaking free.

“So when’s your date with Jadon?” he managed instead.

Finally, Shaw looked at him, and the gaze was so stereotypically Shaw—charmingly bemused was how Peter and Paul had once put it—that North forgot everything else.

“He’s a detective working a case. He was just doing his job.” A horn blared behind him. “It’s green.”

“Right,” North said, and he stepped on the gas. The Caravan lurched over the white line and died.

Chapter 10

By the time they reached the Borealis offices, Shaw had pretty much convinced himself that he had gotten away with it. It had been close. There had been that moment at the beginning when a change had rippled through North’s face. But that, it turned out, had been Shaw’s imagination. The proof was in the fact that North hadn’t followed up on the possibility—hadn’t teased Shaw about still having his V-card, or some bro bullshit like that. North might avoid serious conversations like the plague, but he never missed an opportunity to yank Shaw’s chain.

In the front office, Pari sat behind her desk with textbooks and notebooks mounded in front of her. Identical islands had been cleared on each side of the desk: in one, she had set up her shiny new MacBook; in the other, she had a loaf of pound cake, two bottles of Coke, and what was, as far as Shaw could tell, a Tupperware of brown sugar. With a spoon. Like she’d been eating it straight.