He was in the study when she came in, climbing onto the reading couch with the specific deliberate purpose of someone arriving for a scheduled appointment, even though no schedule existed beyond Rowan having decided this was happening now.
"Mama told me about the alley," she announced. "And the avocado. Now I want your side."
Darius set down what he was working on.
He'd been waiting for this, in the specific way he'd been waiting for a number of Rowan milestones over the years — not anxiously, just with the quiet readiness of someone who knew a moment was coming and wanted to be present for it rather than caught by it.
"My side," he said. "All right."
He came to sit across from her, the desk's papers forgotten.
"I was looking for someone that night," he said. "Not your mother — someo
