Daniel’s already waiting at a back table when Jack gets there, all straight boxy lines around his cup of coffee with both hands planted around the magazine open in front of him. There’s a second cup at his elbow, as close to an invitation as he can get, a

Jack keeps him going on small things; dead languages and hiking trips out at Mesa Verde. His back is smooth and hard as coral shell, and at night Jack works the knots out of the muscles, letting his fingers drift down his ribs to let him know it’s not o

Five minutes, Jack told the sky over P4X-886. Give me five more minutes, then we’ll go away and you can rain all you want.

It was never Jonas who tried talking to him. It wasn’t Jonas who could make him laugh, or read him, or say the things he couldn’t say, or do any of the things you did when you knew somebody well. His friends did that.

Jack keeps him going on small things. Heartbreaking

When he whispers, “Oma,” it is the loudest sound this world will know for many millions of years

“I feel like a cat burglar in this house. Like I ought to get caught.” Jack’s missing.

Losing the boy had almost been the end of them.

“You’re home late.”

What she lacks in skill she makes up for in voracity.

“Prick”

The words, once formed, could not be unformed.

The arrangement of ordinary things.

Friday night they spend apart. This is surprisingly easy to accomplish.

As policy, it had been a private thing.

And that was just asking for it.

“That’s the last time I order takeout in this neighborhood.”

Things sneak up on you.

Time is stable. Daniel, not so much. Gen

Long, lovely, painful. Gen.