“I’ll take your hangover if you’ll take my feet,” I said, tearing off my nylons and putting them on the table. My entire life since I married Nick felt like a series of events where I was just waiting to get home and take off my hose. My poor feet looked like sausages with five other sausages sticking out of them.

Nick sat up and took them into his lap. “I cannot believe he showed up,” he said, beginning to rub my left foot. “I mean, I can. But it was obnoxious to cruise in on Gran’s arm like we haven’t spent all month wondering what the hell he means when he sends us a GIF of Leo and Kate on the prow of the Titanic.”

A knock came at the door. “Ooh, brilliant, I asked if someone could send up snacks,” said Nick, scooting out from under my legs to answer the door.

“Did you talk to him?” I asked, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.

“No, not yet, but—oh.”

I opened my eyes to see Richard standing in the doorway to our suite. His tie was off, and his hair was mussed; he seemed tired. He looked at both of us emptily.

“May I?”

Nick opened the door wider and gestured for him to enter. Hax and Lax had arranged for Freddie’s immediate family to have guest rooms at the palace, after concluding that it was the wisest place to stash me in case the babies decided to upstage everyone and be born early on foreign soil. Lax even ordered me a scooter to traverse the long palace hallways. Nick had used it three times already.

Richard shuffled in and sat down, and I saw that he had a bottle of scotch in his hand. Nick closed the door and wheeled on him.

“Do you have something to say for yourself that isn’t in moving pictures?” he asked.

“I apologize,” Richard said. “I’ve already spoken to your brother.”

“You left us twisting in the wind,” Nick snapped. “Did it not occur to you that we might have wanted or needed to talk about what happened?”

He glared at Nick. “Perhaps skipping town when faced with a complex emotional issue is genetic,” he shot back.

“But didn’t you want to talk about it?” I asked. “This was a huge thing that happened.”

Richard’s lips twitched, and he took a sip of scotch from the bottle. “It was, and that’s precisely why I left,” he said. “I keep my own counsel. I am not accustomed to doing it any other way. I admit, it was not ideal, but I needed distance and space to think.”

“And we needed you,” Nick said.

“For that, again, I apologize.” Richard sounded very weary.

“You’re here now, though,” I offered.