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He sounds unsure of this Dryden Roy in his email, in this description of their first meeting. Unsure of the beautiful, dark-skinned, sly fox who slunk into town and winked at him. I snort when I read that part, able to perfectly imagine how Shiloh’s face probably looked when he was winked at. This is the first mention of another man in his life—the first mention of another person at all, beyond the usual news he started sharing about Nils and Oliver. It makes me wonder if Shiloh spent all those years alone, or if perhaps this was just the first time he felt comfortable or brave enough to share. Discussing relationshipswasn’t something we ever got around to during our teenage years, so I have no basis for how he’d handle that.

Well, no basis except for my own fanciful daydreams, that is. I can’t imagine Shiloh being anything less than a caretaker. A love-maker and romantic-gesture sort of man. I can’t imagine how he could fit with Dryden Roy. I suppose I barely know the man and can hardly judge him fairly by our one encounter, but everything about him seemed…off to me. Fake. Like he was putting on a smarmy act, pretending to be disinterested and above such petty things that the rest of us mortals deem important. His default expression was a smirk, for fuck’s sake.

But regardless of how badly I want to hate the man for no good reason, he was here the last two years, and I wasn’t. He was smiling at Shiloh and getting him to laugh and eating all the sandwiches he made. He was probably getting to do a lot of other things that I’m trying very hard not to think about. Things that keep me awake at night, and make it hard to watch porn unless one of the men has dark blond hair.

Sighing, I sit back and close my eyes, trying to give them a break. They ache fiercely, and I know I should shut it down and stop reading, but I can’t. I’ve gone seven years starved of Shiloh, and now that I know the morsels were sitting here the whole time, I can’t help but gorge.

“Just one more,” I whisper into the dark, empty room as I lean over the computer, adjust the brightness, and click into the next.

It turns out Shiloh has been on the hunt for a hobby these past years. He tried a book club but didn’t like having to reada book someone else chose and the fact that very little chat about the book actually took place. I smile as I read that email, imagining him in someone’s sitting room, book on his lap and a confused look on his face as everyone gossiped. The next group club he tried was cycling, which again startles a laugh from me. There’s no description of how that went other than the single line: I’m not a biker. After that, he pivots to individual hobbies, although he doesn’t seem to have found his niche there either.

There’s a smile on my face in the beginning, picturing him doing these things, but by the end, my stomach has turned sour, and my throat feels tight once more. He was lonely, I realize. Lonely enough to buy a bicycle and join a club when he’d never in his life partaken in physical activity beyond what was required in his job. He wasn’t looking for fitness, though; he was searching for friends.

I stay up all night reading, meeting Shiloh again, finding him the same in many ways and different in a few more. In most things, I recognize him. Even if he hadn’t signed each email with his name or sent it from that old Hotmail handle, I could read these and know it was him.

He’s there in these emails, just the way I left him seven years ago. I don’t know how to feel about it, beyond a confusing mixture of self-disgust, sadness, and joy. Looking back, it feels like I sacrificed Shiloh for my own mental health—left him on the other side of the bridge with everyone else as I drove over and away. A burned bridge, as he so helpfully pointed out tonight. And he’s right. The fact is, even though eighteen-year-old me was sad and sick and confused, adult me is not. Communicationis a two-way street, and fear isn’t a good enough reason for me to have let my side rot.

My phone, which died a couple of hours ago and is now charging on the nightstand, lights up. A few minutes later, it brightens again, this time buzzing silently through a phone call. Sighing, I close my laptop cover and plunge the room further into darkness.

“Hey,” I answer, picking up Daniel’s call. He’s been texting me for hours, and there are only so many I can ignore before he’ll get worried and send the cops knocking on my door.

“What’s going on, kid?”

Slumping back against the pillows, I tell him.

“The lobster email folder? From Shiloh? He’s an old friend from when I grew up here. We were…we were really close.” I stop, waiting for Daniel to say anything, but he’s quiet on the other end of the line. Suspiciously quiet. “I deleted the email I’d set up when we were kids because everyone knew it, and people kept emailing me fucking condolences about my mom. It was…it was just a lot, and so I shut the whole thing down. I think when Shiloh went to contact me, he probably got a message bounced back and then went looking for another way. So he emailed from the website.”

Daniel, after a bloated pause, says, “Right. Makes sense. Is there a reason why you wanted to read them now? After not having an interest the past couple years?”

Now it’s my turn to pause. Not having an interest? Spiky slivers of dread poke at my skin.

“I didn’t know he was sending them,” I reply quietly. Danielsighs.

“You did, actually, kiddo. Right around the third time one came through, I brought it up to you. You get a lot of people sending you messages, but there was something about these that felt a little too familiar. I couldn’t find anything overtly harmful in them, so I brought it up to you.”

I close my eyes again as they start to burn.

“No,” I mutter. I don’t remember this. How could I not remember this?

“Ewan, sit down, kid. Drink some water.” He waits, giving me time to comply. The plastic bottle squeaks as I take a sip. “Sometimes I don’t think you remember just how bad things got. You were working nonstop, not sleeping, taking your medication on nothing but a stomach full of coffee. I’d talk to you, and you’d just look right through me. Remember when Francis Knight hired you? For the wall?”

I can’t help but smile. I don’t really remember him hiring me, as such, but I do remember completing the work. I remember Mr. Knight sitting behind me in that armchair, sipping his tea and listening to his record player, watching me paint. I remember him setting an old-school kitchen timer and making me take regular breaks. I remember feeling human again.

“Yeah,” I tell Daniel.

“Well, it was right before then that I brought up the emails. I’m sorry, kiddo, I should have tried again once you got to feeling better. But I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t want us to gobackto that place. I locked everything down after that—kept it need to know only with you.”

I nod. I can’t be mad at him. Daniel has only ever looked out for me, and what was he supposed to do? He didn’t know who Shiloh was to me, and apparently, I didn’t tell him. In fact, I told him I didn’t want to know or see fan mail. Multiple times, I told him. It never once crossed my mind that Shiloh might be one of them.

“I fucked up,” I tell Daniel softly. “I really, really fucked up.”

Chapter Ten

SHILOH

It’s a warm morning, and I’m already sweating. Too many layers. Tugging on the neckline of my hoodie, I pull into my usual parking spot. I’m annoyed, and I slept like shit. Roy’s car isn’t here, which annoys me even more. I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those days whereeverythingannoys me, no matter how unjustified that feeling is.

I sit and wait in my truck until Nils pulls up beside me, the low growl of the engine sounding overly loud in the quiet morning. Sighing, I abandon my vigil and climb from the vehicle. Nils meets me on the other side, a questioning look on his face. He stays silent. Nils has never been one to stick his beak where it doesn’t belong.