Max shut the door behind him with his heel and looked at Adam as if he had personally invented cruelty.
"You look terrible," Adam said again, softer this time, because Max still hadn't responded; he just stood there in the doorway, the expression of a man who had been held together by duty, caffeine, and escalating violence and had now reached the end of all three.
"That," Max said at last, voice rough with fatigue, "is the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week."
Adam's mouth curved, small and warm and disastrously fond. "That bad?"
"A viscountess tried to start a feud over ribbon."
Adam blinked. "Ribbon."
"Silver versus gold. Apparently the moral future of the Empire depends on thread selection."
A quiet laugh escaped Adam before he could stop it, and Max felt something inside him go soft in a way he deeply distrusted.
God. He had missed him.
