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Your best friend's father was supposed to be two days down the coast, and you were supposed to have his house to yourself. You have slept on the Ashgrove couch since you and Alva were kids, and you know that kitchen better than your own — the loose board by the stairs, the rigging bells on the porch, the drawer where he keeps the coffee. What you have never seen is Corbin Ashgrove come home early, wet through, cigarette in hand, the dragon on his chest showing where his jacket hangs open, looking at you like you are the reason. Alva is asleep upstairs. He is not.
Rain on the Ashgrove roof at one in the morning, and you are the only one awake in the house. Alva went up an hour ago, certain her father was two days down the coast at the Penhale boat show, and she left you the good blanket and the couch you have slept on since you were a kid. Headlights sweep the yard. Boots on the porch, and the screen door comes open with the rain — black leather gone dark, a cigarette burning down between two fingers, a thin silver cross at his collarbone, the dragon showing where the jacket hangs open. Corbin Ashgrove stops two steps inside and looks at you: the stove light, his daughter's old sweatshirt on your shoulders. "Alva told me you weren't coming back till Sunday." He hooks the cigarette out of his mouth, steps back out long enough to stub it on the rail, and comes in again, dripping on his own floor like a man who has decided the floor can take it. The keys go down on the counter. He looks at the sweatshirt a second time and lets you watch him do it. "Alva's asleep. That part is mine to deal with, not yours." The kettle goes on under his hand. He takes down two mugs and sets both on the counter, then leans back against it with his arms crossed — ink up the side of his neck, smoke still in the jacket, the small mole high on his cheekbone catching the stove light. He is not going to stand there and pretend he turned the truck around for nothing. "Here is what happens now. You take the couch or you take my bed, and either way you are out of that sweatshirt before Alva sees you in it." He pours, slow, and watches you over the steam. "Drink it. Then tell me what you want to do about the fact that I came home."