Not even close.
2
The Sound was doing what it always did at night—sitting there, dark and vast and completely indifferent to the fact that Noah Chase was turning thirty-nine on its doorstep.
He appreciated that about the water. It didn't care who he was.
The noise from inside carried through the glass—Henrietta Bowie's voice cutting through everything, someone's kid shrieking in that high-register way that meant either genuine distress or pure joy, and with the Bowie family, it was usually the latter. He'd learned that. He'd learned a lot about how a family actually functioned from watching this one, which was both the best and strangest education he'd ever gotten.
He took a sip of Casamigos and looked at the darkness.
He'd spent twenty-five years building a life that had nothing to do with the one he'd been born into, and he'd done it. By any reasonable measure, he'd done it. The show. The house. The view. The awards on the shelf that he looked at approximately twice a year because the work was the point, not the recognition, though the recognition didn't hurt. He'd built something real and from the wreckage of his early life.
He just hadn't realized how lonely that climb would be.
The door opened behind him.
"There he is." Reid Carson, Ziggy’s one and only brother-in-law, came out first, an empty glass in one hand and the unhurried ease of a man who'd made his peace with the world. Troy Bowie, Ziggy’s younger brother, followed, already reaching for the Casamigos bottle on the rail without asking, which Noah had long since stopped minding. Jag Bowie, the oldest brother, came last, closing the door behind him with the deliberateness of a man who'd spent enough years as a cop that he always knew where the exits were.
"Hiding already," Troy said. "It's your party."
"It's Ziggy's party," Noah said. "I'm just the excuse."
"That's accurate," Jag said.
Reid poured himself two fingers and leaned on the rail beside Noah. “Your view is better than ours.”
“You tell me that every time you come over.”
“Yeah, well, at least I know what furniture looks like." Reid shook his head. "Commit to the house, man."
“I pay the bills. That’s commitment.”
"You've got a couch and a TV and a view," Troy said. "That's a very expensive campsite."
“It’s called living with what you need, and I have more things than that.”
"The desk in your office doesn't count."
Noah glared. "I have a bed."
"Allegedly," Troy said.
Jag smiled into his drink, which was his version of a laugh. Noah had learned that too—the Bowie family had their own language, their own frequencies, the shorthand of people who'd grown up in the same house and never entirely left it, even when they’d scattered. He'd been adjacent to it long enough toread most of it. Long enough that sometimes he forgot he wasn't actually part of it.
Then he remembered.
"Thirty-nine," Troy said, with the cheerfulness of someone who wasn't thirty-nine yet. "How's that feel?"
"Exactly like thirty-eight."
"That's what they all say." Troy smiled.
"Because it's true." Ried raised his drink. "Nobody actually feels different on their birthday. That's a myth perpetuated by people who need a reason to throw parties."
"Ziggy needed a reason?" Jag raised an eyebrow. "She organized a coordinated family event on a Thursday night. She didn't need a reason. She needed an outlet."
Noah looked back at the water. Inside, he could hear Henrietta's laugh, big and warm and utterly unselfconscious, and under it the lower register of Albert Morning’s voice, a Seattle detective, telling some story that his wife, Crystal, was probably already editing for length and accuracy.