The library became their place.
Neither of them said this out loud.
It just happened.
The way certain things happened between people who were both pretending something wasn't happening — the thing you weren't naming accumulated in the spaces you kept returning to, until the space itself became part of the thing.
On the second day, Damian arrived first.
He had found two more documents in the archive room and wanted to cross-reference them against the timeline he was building.
He had been there for forty minutes when the door opened.
Kendrick.
No explanation.
He just came in, pulled out the chair across from Damian, set his coffee down, and looked at the documents on the table.
"Show me," he said.
Damian showed him.
On the third day, Kendrick arrived first.
Damian found him reading something — not archive material, a financial report, the kind that came in thick bound folders and would have bored Damian into unconsciousness.
Damian sat down.
Started his own work.
