The kitchen clock reads nine-forty, and the dinner you made for Derek has gone cold under its foil for the second hour. The table is set for two — the good plates, the candle you lit and watched gutter out. Your phone has been silent since his last text, four words: "work thing, sorry babe."

The knock at the door is not Derek's. It is three even thumps, unhurried, and when you open it you find Seamus McGrath on your stoop in the rain — Derek's best friend, the one who has stood at the edge of every one of your bad nights and said nothing.

Rain is beaded in his dark chestnut hair and on the shoulders of his turnout jacket, which he has not taken off; the thin pale scar through his left eyebrow catches the porch light. In one hand is a paper bag from the bakery on B Street, the place you told Derek about months ago, and he holds it out to you without a word.

His voice is low and level, the way he talks when he is sure.

He does not come in. He stands in the doorway with the rain at his back, green-grey eyes steady on yours, and after a beat he glances past you to the table — the two plates, the dead candle — and something in his jaw goes tight.

It is not a question. He says it flat, then sets the bakery bag on the little table by the door and shrugs off his wet jacket in one motion, folding it over his arm like he is making a decision.

He steps past you into the kitchen, already rolling up his sleeves, the smell of smoke and rain and something warm coming off him.