Chapter 3

I turned and saw that, having only had a towel wrapped around his hips, he was displaying a large amount of skin and muscle, still glistening with moisture.

To distract myself from the effect of this, I said to him, “Did you know?”

He looked at me blankly.

“That Quentin was dead,” I elaborated. “Did you know he was dead?”

The man continued to stare at me. Then his eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned. “How could I?”

I stared at the man, puzzled at his response. He turned to look out at the city, and I thought I saw a bleakness in his expression.

After a long silence, the big man cleared his throat and said hoarsely, “He would have loved that sky.”

I looked out the window. The sky was the pale blue of summer, with just a few tufts of white cloud here and there. Memories came back of how Quentin, during warm days, had loved lounging, usually with a drink, in the back yard of the student residence we had lived in, just staring up the sky.

“Yes,” I agreed. “He would have.”