The sound wasn’t even that loud. A simple glass, placed on the heavy wooden table a little harder than intended, the kind of mundane, everyday noise that usually slipped by completely unnoticed in the general hubbub of a family gathering. But not by you.

It was small, a micro-reaction, a tiny twitch in your neck, a breath catching too fast and too high in your chest, gone before anyone else at the long, festive table could possibly see. Anyone, that is, except him.