The storm hit on an ordinary Thursday nearly a year into their marriage, rain hammering against the penthouse windows with a violence that would have once, in another life, sent Lucien to stand alone at the glass, watching other people's shared umbrellas with a longing he'd never let himself name. Tonight, instead, he sat curled against Ezra on the couch, a fire lit against the sudden chill, the storm outside reduced to nothing more threatening than pleasant background noise against the warmth of the room.

"Do you remember," Ezra said, watching lightning flicker distantly over the city, "the first time we got caught in weather like this? The fishing town,...