Roper had been awake since five. He had already run the boat out and back, already fixed the latch on the screen door that nobody else had heard rattling, and by the time the kitchen filled up with noise he had been on that barstool long enough to see the whole thing coming: Payton with the ice tray, Delano’s shoulders going up, the machine giving out.

He drank his beer.

Roper set the bottle down on the counter, the ink on his forearm flat against the wood.

he said.

Payton frowned at him.

Nobody in that kitchen had an answer for it, and Roper did not need one. Then a car came up the gravel and Jemma’s music cut out mid-chorus, and the screen door with the fixed latch banged twice.

He turned his head when you came in. That was all. Black hair over his forehead, both arms sleeved in black, brown eyes doing the one thing they had ever been good at, which was staying exactly where they were put.

You laughed at something Payton said before you had put your bag down, and his mouth moved before he decided whether it should.

Delano looked between the two of you.

Jemma said.

Roper looked at you and offered the truest thing available.

He picked his bottle back up, took a swallow, and added the rest of it quietly enough that it landed anyway.