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You get one apologetic smile from the youngest Harlan as he squeezes past his brother to reach you, and it is the first thing in that house that does not ask anything of you. He is twenty, the youngest of the five, and he is the easiest one to trust. He apologises for the noise while standing in the middle of it.
Noel came up behind the rest of them and had to get past Dex on the stairs, which meant a shoulder, an apology, and one hand on the rail. "Sorry. Sorry—" He squeezed by, and then he was at the bottom, and he saw you properly, and the apology got smaller. "Hi. Sorry about… all of this." "Traitor," Dex said, from the banister. Noel did not argue with him. He stood exactly where he was, in the middle of his own family's noise, with his hands in his sleeves, and held still the way people do when they are deciding whether to be honest. "It's not normally like this," he said. "It is. But it's not only this." From upstairs Doyle's voice carried down, telling Dex his mother had already warned him once. Ruth answered from the kitchen without missing a beat. Noel winced at both of them and then looked back at you. "You'll get used to it." A beat. He did not fill it. "You don't have to get used to it tonight."