He closed his mouth.
“The whole thing. Your apartment. My apartment. Whichever one we keep. The inevitable gay-merging-of-households situation where somehow we end up with three coffee makers and exactly one decent frying pan. I want the part where you let me read in bed at two in the morning while you do your little lock-checking ritual like the world’s hottest haunted Victorian widower. “
He turned and looked at me. I couldn’t stop talking.
“I’m telling you now because if I wait until after Wednesday, I’ll be telling you because we lived through it. I want to tell you because of what we are, not because of what almost happened.”
I stopped.
“Ask me again Thursday,” Dane said.
It wasn’t the answer I’d been bracing for, and it wasn’t the wrong one.
“Thursday then,” I said.
“Thursday.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Not a no.”
I started the engine and pulled out onto Mt. Auburn, going east. At Memorial Drive, I reached across the console and rested my hand on Dane’s wrist.
We took the rotary and surface streets to Brattle. At three-forty-seven we arrived.
Eamon called Dane’s secure line. “Magistrate signed. Sweep goes at oh-five-hundred. All four addresses. Federal has it.”
Chapter twenty-one
Dane
Iwas in the kitchen of the Brattle House at four-eleven a.m., making coffee. My phone buzzed once. I had it to my ear before the second.
“You’re awake,” Eamon said.
“I’ve been awake.”
“Speaker.”
I tapped it and set the phone on the cutting board, screen up.
“Three teams are in position: Watertown for Sorensen, Allston for Voss, and Dorchester for Costa. A fourth team is holding outside the Auburndale house, bomb squad with them. They go at oh-five-hundred on the lead’s call.”
“Are you at the field office, Eamon?”
“Yes, Government Center. Federal liaisons are running the channel from here. Michael’s patched in from Seattle. We’re observers.”
“Understood.”
“Dane, this isn’t ours now. We watch.”
“Yes, I heard you the first time.”
A small breath through the line. Eamon didn’t laugh before five a.m., but he came close.
“Is Farrow up?”
“He’ll be down before five.”