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“Was she younger or older than you?”Annie asked.

“Younger, though you wouldn’t know it, given the way she had a tendency to take care of me,” Colum admitted.

Xavier grinned.“Did you need tending?”

“Not as much as Josephine thought I did.But taking care of others was in her nature, and, well, you’ve spent the last week with me, so you’ve probably noticed I’m not exactly the most organized when it comes to real-life shite, like eating or tidying up or getting outside for fresh air.Josephine was the one who always stocked the pantry in the kitchenette.She was the one who dusted the furniture whenever it got so thick, she could write her name in it.”Colum ran his finger through the thin layer of dust on the side of his desk, writing his name, giving them a self-deprecating shrug.

“She was a good sister,” Annie said, no question in her voice, just a statement of the truth, and Colum nodded.

“Aye.That she was.Since she’s been gone, I’ve just been…existing.She would have hated that, hated how I locked myself away in here,” he said, gesturing at the room.“How much I was drinking.”

“Drinking?”Annie asked.

“Alcohol was the only thing that deadened the pain.”Their eyes connected, and he held her gaze as he said, “I don’t do that anymore.Woke up too many times on the floor after a blackout drunk, feeling a hundred times worse than when I cracked open the bottle.”

“Depression is a slippery slope,” Annie said.“Once you start falling…”

“It’s hard to climb back up,” Colum finished, recalling how much guilt and sorrow she’d suffered after the death of that young child and her family during one of her missions with the CIA.

“Very hard,” Annie agreed.

“I don’t like this distance between us.Let’s go sit on the couch,” Xavier urged.Colum was tempted to point out Xavier was standing right next to him, but he didn’t because he agreed.He needed to feel them next to him, needed that closeness, so he allowed the other man to help him stand, guiding him to the middle cushion, while his lovers flanked him, both sitting so close their thighs were pressed right up against his.

Xavier wrapped an arm around his shoulders, while Annie took his hand, interlacing their fingers, hers soft, comforting.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Annie said.

Colum appreciated that offer, but he wasn’t going to accept it.He’d spent too many years carrying this pain around on his own.Eric had reached out to him several times, tried to get him to open up, but Colum hadn’t been able to say what he was feeling.It was Josephine who always gave voice to his emotions, helped him express his fears, his pains, even his joys.

“She was my best friend.”Colum had never admitted that, never even really considered it, but it was true.They’d grown up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, with only each other for playmates.

Annie bit her lip and Colum got the sense she was trying to hold back tears, trying to be strong for him.The idea that she would cry because he was in pain warmed him all the way to the bones.

“She understood me.She understood that I love people, but I just…I don’t always have the patience for beingwithpeople.It was a fecking revelation when I first heard the word introvert.”He smiled.“But because I’m happiest by myself and get tired of people, I come off like a right arsehole sometimes.Josephine was an extrovert.All the way to her bones.She could talk for Ireland and would step in and either have a chat or get us out.”

“She could tell when your social battery ran out,” Annie said.

“Exactly so.”Colum looked at Annie.“I didn’t break into Eric’s cottage all those years ago to steal a book.I went in, hoping to learn more about him.I was fascinated, and wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to have to be talking to him.Meeting and talking to new people, especially adults when I was a child…” Colum shook his head.“But Josephine insisted on going with me that day.”

“Keeping an eye out for you?”Annie asked.

Xavier made a displeased noise.“You’ve talked about this.Without me.”

“Yes, we have,” Annie said with a big smile that made Xavier smirk at her.

Colum butted his shoulder against the other man’s chest.“Eric lived in a cottage on my family’s farm.This story is about the first time I met him.”

“And it involved breaking and entering Eric Ericsson’s cottage?”Xavier tsked, the scolding sounding oddly sexy.

Colum shook his head.“I was being a right eejit, but Josephine understood why I felt the need to see his things, why I wanted to discover what I could about him.When Eric caught us, she was the one who came up with the lie about stealing the books.I just stood there, frozen, silent, panicking.”

“Sounds like your sister was cool under pressure,” Annie observed.

“She was clever like a fox, quick-witted, intelligent.She was top of her class at uni, studied to be a linguist.”

“Was she a member of the Masters’ Admiralty as well?”Xavier asked.

Colum nodded.“She was.And because she was so clever, she was invited to join a think tank within the society, six great minds, all working together to help uncover who’d killed our previous fleet admiral.Called themselves the Librarians.”