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Two, he drinks his coffee black.

I know this because there’s a single mug in the cabinet nobody else touches. Plain. Heavy. Navy blue. When I reached for it my first morning, Dottie said, “Not that one, honey,” in the same tone you’d use to warn someone off a hot stove.

Three, he hates unnecessary meetings but somehow attends approximately twelve thousand of them.

I know this one from him. Sometimes, when he calls, I can hear them in the background. A conference room door closing. Someone saying his name in that hopeful way people do when they want something.

He doesn’t use emojis. Ever.

I’ve tried. He refuses.

I’ve sent him the Santa, a dinosaur, a Christmas tree, a cup of coffee, and, one night after a particularly long day, a small eggplant, by accident, which I then had to explain at length while he said absolutely nothing for four minutes.

He still hasn’t sent a single one back.

He calls Shiloh every night, no matter what. Even when he’s in a meeting. Or at the airport. Gate announcements echoing behind him, his face lit blue by the departures board, rolling a carry-on with one hand and holding the phone up with the other.

Even when, one night, he calls almost an hour late and looks so exhausted on Shiloh’s tablet that I want to reach through the screen and tuck him into bed.

I don’t, obviously.

That would be weird.

Instead, I sit quietly on Shiloh’s bed while Maverick reads Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site over FaceTime.

The hallway is dark except for the warm glow spilling from Shiloh’s door and the colored lights we wound around the banister, blinking red and green and blue at the far end of the hall. The house smells like pine and the sugar cookies we burned this afternoon.

Maverick does voices.

Not good voices, but voices nonetheless.

The crane is gruff. The bulldozer sounds vaguely British for reasons I can’t explain. The cement mixer is just Maverick’s regular voice, slightly lower, which I think might be a sign he’s running out of steam.

Grandpa used to do voices. Terrible ones. Every character in every book sounded like a cowboy with a head cold. I never once asked him to stop.

My throat goes a little tight.

I lean against the doorframe.

The wood is cool against my shoulder.

Shiloh is curled beneath his blankets, clutching his stuffed dinosaur. His tablet is propped against the pillow beside him, and Maverick’s face fills the screen.

The dinosaur is a green, floppy brontosaurus, its neck gone limp from years of being dragged around by it like a handle. Shiloh has it tucked under his chin, one thumb rubbing back and forth over a worn spot on its tail.

Maverick looks different like this.

His profile photograph is very serious. Professional and a little intimidating with his dark suit, crisp white shirt, and a jaw that looks like it was carved for the specific purpose of disapproving of things. I’ve looked at it enough times to know.

This Maverick has loosened his tie. His dark hair is messy, like he’s been dragging his fingers through it, and there’s more gray at his temples than I noticed in his pictures.

There are shadows under his eyes. The lamp beside him throws half his face into gold and leaves the other half dark, and behind him I can see the edge of a hotel headboard and a window full of someone else’s city lights.

He looks tired. And alone.

And kind of beautiful, in a rumpled, stubbled, should-have-gone-to-bed-two-hours-ago way.

I like it.