“No. Nothing like that. Never. But when he’s around, it’s like he sucks up all the air in the room and no one else has the chance to breathe.” He looked down and shook his head. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“I just hope someday when I get married, I don’t turn into that. The kind of girl I’d like is one who smiles all the time. And I would never want to be the reason to take that away from her.”

William grinned. “You know, Tom, that there are some very specific and time-honored ways of keeping a perpetual smile on your girl’s face.”

Tom tossed his last pillow at William’s head. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“You’re so easy, Powell. You walk right into these things. No guile at all.” William laughed quietly, though they’d learned that the Browns were hard of hearing at their age and if John’s snoring didn’t keep them up, surely William’s laughter wouldn’t.

And it was so good to finally hear it.

“I just mean that I’d like to have a wife who finds delight in things. Who comes to the dinner table with stories about her day and has an interest in mine. Give and take. I don’t want to rob her of all that makes her what I fell in love with in the first place.”

William tipped an imaginary hat on his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a Thoroughly Modern Man.”

Tom shrugged. “Right shouldn’t be modern. It’s just…right.” He couldn’t find a better word for it.

“It shouldn’t. But all too often, it is.”

“What about you?” Tom was eager to turn the tables. “I saw the smile on your face when you found that note in your sock from John’s sister. Maybe there’s something there. If you play your cards right, he could be your brother-in-law someday.”

William shook his head, and his voice took on a tone that Tom didn’t quite understand. “It’s not like that. First of all, you can’t fall in love through letters.”

Tom paused to consider this and wasn’t sure he agreed. His weekend with that girl long ago had shown him that although being with a girl physically had its delights, what he craved was a connection of the heart. Wouldn’t that make the physical part even better? And what more ideal way was there to make sure that you were really getting to know a girl than through a letter? Where the distraction of her beauty didn’t take away from the words you were sharing.

But he didn’t say that to William. Despite having a few years on them, John and William liked to tease him for his simplistic views about such things.