Byron seemed like someone with a good sense, things matched, everything fit nicely, his jacket was a simple woolen one that came down to the belt, jeans slim, and while he wasn’t athletic in build like Tristan, he was trim enough that he cut a fine line. But good sense aside, he wasn’t the kind of guy who paid attention to fashion. I didn’t imagine he looked at magazines, researched, or visited different stores. He probably had one or two stores he liked and picked a suitable, muted color, Victoria-couldn’t-find-much-fault-in-it kind of wardrobe from the selection there.

He was resting a hand on Moonsong’s shoulder, and he took her hand. She let him, but when he let go of it to shift how he sat on the backrest of the bench, she didn’t reach out. There wasn’t any point that I saw where she touched him. No hand on his leg, no leaning toward him so their arms touched. And she looked down.

“Poor Byron,” I thought, accidentally saying the thought aloud.

“What?” Rain asked. “Why poor Byron?”

“She’s breaking up with him,” Erin said.

“They’re not together,” he protested, voice insistent but hushed so it wouldn’t carry. “They haven’t been together for years. And how do you even know?”

“The way I understand it, from how they’ve acted in the past, and from what I’ve heard,” I said. “They’re not together, but for a while now there’s been… an enduring connection. The two of them waiting for each other. That’s what’s ending.”

“Yes,” Erin said. “Exactly.”

“That,” I told Rain, “is a goodbye. Carefully negotiated, because they expect to run into each other a lot, they want to make sure there are no hard feelings.”

“No resentments,” Erin said. “Everything on the table.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, Rain,” I said. “Pretty sure.”

“I was standing here satisfied because one of the two guys that’ve been most decent to me over the last little while was getting to finally spend some time with the girl he liked, and it’s been this awful thing all along?”

“Yes,” Erin said.

“No,” I said, almost at the same time. “I don’t think it’s awful.”

“He likes her a lot,” Rain said.

“Obviously it would be great if they could make it work,” I said.

“Ideally without her being shitty to Tristan,” Rain said. “But it was what I was hoping for.”

“You’re not wrong.” I leaned against the railing by the front steps of the temporary headquarters. “At least this way they get some closure. Not getting closure sucks.”

“Just watch,” Rain said. “He’ll finish up, come join us, and it won’t be a break-up.”

I raised my eyebrows, but I didn’t say anything.