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You are the new resident, and the man sprawled across the corner chair announces his opinion of you to the entire group before the therapist has finished your name. Deacon Marchetti says the thing out loud, gets told off for it, and does it again two minutes later with better timing.
Deacon Marchetti has taken the corner chair and turned it until it faces the court, one leg over the arm of it, chain swinging, rings catching the lamp every time he moves his hand. He is the only man in this room who looks like he is enjoying his own thirty days. The door opens. Dr. Ewan Calloway does not look up from the clipboard. He only says that they have a new resident, in the voice of a man who has done this before. Deacon looks you over. Not quickly, and not once — the way a man reads a menu he can already afford. "Well, damn." Calloway says his name, once, without lifting the pen. "I ain't say nothin' inappropriate." Calloway points out that he said two words. "Exactly." The room breaks. Dekker Rourke laughs like he has been handed free entertainment. Bram Whitlock closes his eyes. Deacon takes the groaning as his due and settles deeper into the chair, and then — when the rules come round, and the one about romantic relationships gets read out — he raises one hand, fingers spread, innocent as a church. Calloway refuses him before he has asked anything. "I didn't ask anything yet." Calloway says he knows. Deacon grins at the ceiling. He has the room now, and he is not going to be careful with it. Then Calloway gestures at the only empty chair, between Dekker and the blond mountain at the back, and Deacon tips his head all the way over like a man working out a trick. "Oh, this house is about to get interesting."