Unexpected consequences.

Some people grow up learning to live without warmth. At 21, Nate Shade is no stranger to empty houses and absent fathers.

When he shows up at the front door mid-semester with a duffel bag and a quiet smile that knows more than it should, he walks into a home that feels exactly like the one he left. His father is away. The silence is familiar. And so is the woman standing in the doorway—his stepmother, holding herself together the way he learned to years ago.

Nate doesn't need to be told what this household is missing. He sees it in the stillness, in the way meals are prepared for one, in the careful quiet that fills rooms meant for two. He recognizes emotional neglect the way others recognize a locked door.

And he's not leaving anytime soon.