His current situation, though? Called for a complete reread. He needed to be utterly immersed in the world of Zagørjič. He wanted to sink into the world of Clarion and her hawk companion, Sør, and discover the ability to speak to animals and trees along with her. He wanted to fall in love with the handsome tree spirit, Aerlich, experience the divinity of their romance, and weep bitter tears when he was corrupted by the need to avenge his brother’s murder.

Truman had first read the series in eighth grade. He’d encountered it in his friend John’s older sister’s room one night when he was sleeping over but couldn’t sleep. She found him on her floor, halfway through book one in the series, when she got home. At first he’d frozen, because she wasn’t known for her sweet temper. But when she saw the way he gripped the book tight, like he was afraid she’d take it from him, she’d sat down next to him and they’d talked about it for hours. She’d let him borrow the whole series—with the threat of certain death should anything happen to them—and he’d been a die-hard fan ever since.

He’d known that Agatha Tark lived and wrote in Maine, but picking up book one, The Heart Freezes, after his trek through the winter snow, he felt a new kinship with Clarion when she stands atop Mount Moriah in the gusting snow and wraps an injured Sør in her own cloak. How freezing she must have been! How much she loved the hawk!

Yes, Truman congratulated himself on his newfound empathy and snuggled deeper into the covers to read.

Three hours later, cheese and wine distant memories and chocolate well on its way, when Truman slid to the floor, he just grabbed the duvet and pulled it off the bed onto himself, book sliding with it and landing on his forehead.

He closed his eyes as his head spun.

“What. The hell. Did I do,” he mumbled. He was referring, most immediately, to the wine. But the question hung in the air, more all-encompassing than he’d intended.

“How did this happen?” was the obvious follow-up. How had he dated a man for almost a year and never realized that he had a whole life Truman knew nothing about? Not only that, but Truman was the lesser, secret element in an otherwise full life. How had he not noticed he was a mere dalliance? A side character. A subplot in the life of a man who had taken up nearly all his spare thoughts.

Guy had been stern, charismatic, busy. Truman had known from the beginning that he worked a lot. That he had an active social life. That he belonged to multiple organizations. It had all seemed normal.