He hesitated.
"How long, Matt."
"Till about one."
"Till one in the morning. On a Tuesday."
"We were just talking. About her dad. About high school. About—" He stopped.
"About what?"
"About everything. About what it was like back then. About her marriage. Why it ended." He looked up at her. "She asked about you. I told her about you. I told her you were amazing. I told her about your work."
"Did you tell her I was on nights?"
He didn't answer.
"Did you tell her," Renée said, very evenly, "that your wife was working twelve-hour overnight shifts three and four nights a week, so that any time she wanted to come over, she could just ask what night I was working?"
"It wasn't like that," he said again, and even he seemed to hear how it sounded this time, how thin and used up it was, a phrase that had already been worn through. He closed his eyes. "It wasn't planned. Not like you're making it sound."