This isn't weird.

Butter Wouldn't Melt

As she led him through the extravagant house, Rebecca's touch on Ben's arm was light, but it reminded him oddly of George, whose soft paws could protract into a fistful of tiny daggers in the blink of an eye should his mood take a turn for the worse.

He was vaguely aware she was speaking, but she may just as well have been addressing him in Russian. To him, her voice was just a distant hum, failing to penetrate the cacophony of thoughts screaming through his head. Millie! She was here—he had found her—and yet, she had slipped right through his fingers yet again. What was he doing, letting himself be pulled along by this stranger, leaving her alone, with... with... him?

Noah. The Noah. The looming, monstrous figure that had cast such an ugly shadow over his dreams of a life with her, the ever-present scar that had made her flinch away from his open arms over and over again. Millie had never tried to describe him, and Ben had certainly never asked; in his mind, Noah was little more than a villainous caricature. He wasn't supposed to have a face. But he did have a face. It was tired, and sad, and... and... human.

Not to mention, absurdly good-looking.

Ben could barely breathe. He wanted to pry himself from Rebecca's grasp, turn on his heel, and scramble back to Millie. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and run and never look back, before those doleful blue eyes could stir up her sympathy, or anything else.

"I—I don't understand," he finally managed to choke out.

"There really isn't much to understand," Rebecca replied pleasantly. "The two of them have a bit of business to discuss, and then the two of you can be on your way. I do apologize for the delay. I'd rather hoped this would all be over with by the time you arrived. Noah is a terrible insomniac, you see. I keep telling him to see a doctor, but he always says he's too tired for all that. He thinks he's terribly clever. I suppose he is, from time to time, in his own way, but you can't imagine how exhausting it is to live with someone so exhausted..."

Her breezy chatter kept him just flummoxed enough to stop him from bolting, and he instead followed along meekly as she ushered him into a sitting room reminiscent of a slightly modernized Downton Abbey. The furniture reminded him of the refurbished antiques that decorated Walt and Hoyt's home, though these sleek facsimiles looked far, far more expensive. A dark-haired man was slumped in an armchair, his back to the room's entrance as he scrolled his phone, and he groaned as Ben and Rebecca entered. "For fuck's sake, Rebeccca, can you just let me stay out of this mess in peace?"

"Language, Rufus," Rebecca admonished.

He turned in his seat, a scowl and a fierce rejoinder at the ready, but when he saw Ben, he halted, still as a photograph. The two men stared at each other in disbelief, then blurted in unison, "Holy shit."

"Language," Rebecca repeated, but nobody seemed to hear her.

After a beat of silence, Ben asked, "Does your mom sell banana bread?"

The man—Rufus—the Rufus?—looked flabbergasted. He turned around fully, his elbows propped on the back of the chair as he knelt on the cushions, craning eagerly forward. "You know my mom?"

"I think I met her once."

"Ho. Lee. Shit."

"Language."

"She called me that day. I thought she was exaggerating."

"So did I," Ben said, then added, a bit pleased, "I didn't realize she was Jewish."

"Got my looks from my dad," Rufus replied, then narrowed his eyes. "Your mom ever been to Portland?"

"No!" Ben exclaimed indignantly. "I mean, not that I know of. But I've done the whole 23andMe thing. I've got a pretty comprehensive grasp on my extended family, thank you very much."