I also haven’t missed the fresh bruises scattered across Mason’s knuckles, or the way he’d tap restlessly against his leg anytime his attention would drift off.

I think back on Shawn’s coldness. Ivy’s loosely veiled hostility.

I see Waylon in my mind’s eye, glaring at me through the mirror. Remember the way his hazel eyes anxiously stuttered over me from across the table. The tick in his jaw, the whites of his knuckles. The way he’d shift from drunk and flirty one second, to outright pissed off the next. Then to a sealed tomb even Indiana Jones would balk at.

“That’s not to say we don’t want you here, Will,” Mason says softly, breaking me out of my thoughts. “That we’re not willing to...try and not be socially challenged assholes for once in our miserable lives.”

I release a breath at that. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.

“You don’t have to do this alone, okay?” A beat passes, and I hold my breath as Mason keeps going. “But I wouldn’t blame you if you changed your mind. You know where I stand, but I understand if it’s too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“The job. Working here. Us.” He takes a moment to chew on his lip ring. “I might not know all the gory details”—I wince—“but you told me enough. And the last thing you probably want is to be surrounded by more...shit.”

I feel Shawn’s penetrating gaze, but I keep my attention fixed solely on Mason. Like earlier today, I feel that recognition again. A level of understanding that mere words could never justify.

Perhaps this is what it means to find company in misery. It’s not so much a common ground, as it is a curse. We’re not trying to understand one another, we just can’t help but do.

I nod, and finally say, “You’re probably right.”

He gives me a quivering smile. “No hard feelings, okay?”

Taking a deep breath, I push away from the table. “And I appreciate it, man, I do. But I’m gonna be real with you,” I say, straightening to a stand. “I’ve had more fun tonight than I’ve had in an embarrassingly long time.”

Mason lets out a startled laugh.

I shrug and match his grin with one of my own. “Why the fuck not, right?”

The heat is smothering when I get outside, clinging to my face like wet wool. A car passes, momentarily drowning out the chatter of crickets.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Philly anymore.

Twirling my keys around my thumb as I round the corner, my brain struggles to reconcile the absence of beeping horns and jumble of shouts with the unnerving silence of midnight suburbia.

I forgot how quiet the world could be.