Anna smiles at him; her glow returns. “Thank you for being so understanding,” she says. “And please know that whatever financial resources you want, we’ll provide. You can keep the house; there will be support for Floyd and support for you as well.”

He’s being paid off, but he doesn’t care. He cuts into his venison sausage. He can’t wait to get home and call his friends.

He starts with Ellen because, really, theirs is the closest relationship, and Ellen is a single mother by choice, so she is savvy and resourceful by nature.

He tells her everything—including the esoteric menu items at dinner—and with each new revelation, she gasps.

Louisa offered job at Cleveland Clinic.

Anna offered job at Cleveland Clinic.

Louisa and Anna moving to Cleveland.

Louisa and Anna offering to move Baker and Floyd to Cleveland.

Louisa and Anna offering to take on the role of Disneyland parents while Baker keeps Floyd in Houston.

Louisa having a baby with sperm donor, Anna agreeing to co-parent. Anna and Louisa promising to support Baker and Floyd financially.

At the end, Ellen says, “On the surface, this sounds…great for you. Really great. Anna and Louisa are out of your hair, you get to keep Floyd and the house, and they’re going to pay you…”

“But?” Baker says.

“Doesn’t it seem too good to be true?” Ellen says. “Like something doesn’t add up? I know Anna isn’t the most hands-on mother, but is she really going to move twelve hundred miles away from her son and see him only at Christmas?”

“And summers,” Baker says weakly. He, too, feels uneasy now, but he can’t tell if it’s because he thinks Anna is going to renege and possibly sue him for custody—which is what it would take for her to get Floyd—or if he’s just embarrassed about marrying a woman who really just isn’t maternal. At all. “Listen, I know it sounds unconventional, but think about Anna. This scenario is perfect for her. She doesn’t have time to parent. I’m concerned about Floyd spending the entire summer with her because you and I both know that means he’ll have a full-time nanny. He’s better off with me.”

“Agreed,” Ellen says. She takes a sip of what he can only assume is 8th Wonder IPA (she’s a craft-beer fanatic) and says, “So my brilliant-best-friend mind now wonders why you would even stay in Houston. With Anna leaving, you’re free to go wherever you want.”

Ellen’s tone is heavy with innuendo. She’s the only one in the group that he’s told about his father dying in the Caribbean, the fifteen-million-dollar villa, and…Ayers. She’s the only one he’s told about Ayers.

That night, the carnivore tasting menu churns in Baker’s stomach as he scrolls through every reason why he shouldn’t leave Houston for good and move down to St. John. He starts with the reasons he gave Anna.

They have a house here.