Jamie inhaled, slow and deep. “Tilly… I hear you. I do. That sounds awful. And I’m sorry you went through it.”
Tilly scoffed. “That’s it? You’re still going to see her?”
Jamie met their gaze, steady. “Because the Erin you’re describing doesn’t match the Erin I know now. Tonight she was thoughtful. She listened. She made me laugh until my stomach hurt. She didn’t feel like someone who only takes.”
“She’s good at acting,” Tilly snapped.
“Or maybe she’s grown since then,” Jamie shot back. “It’s been years, hasn’t it? We’ve all changed. You can’t expect her to be frozen in time.”
Tilly’s mouth opened, then shut again. Their silence was louder than shouting.
Jamie’s voice softened. “I’m not dismissing your experience. I believe you. But I also believe in what I saw tonight. And I need to find out for myself who Erin is now. Not who she was years ago.”
Tilly’s shoulders sagged. They dragged a hand over their face, muttering, “You’re stubborn as hell, you know that?”
Jamie cracked a faint smile. “Yeah. It’s why I’m good at my job.”
Tilly let out a short, humorless laugh, then turned back to the monitors. The conversation, as far as they were concerned, was over.
Jamie sat in silence for a long moment, her own heart still pounding. She reached for her phone again, almost on instinct.
Another text from Erin blinked on the screen.
Good luck with your story tonight. Get some rest after. You deserve it.
Jamie’s throat tightened. She typed back before she could second-guess herself.
Thank you. Sweet dreams, Erin.
She stared at the screen until the message delivered, then tucked the phone against her chest for a moment before slipping it back into her bag.
She opened her laptop again, the cursor blinking in a blank document. But her mind was nowhere near the story. It spun in loops: Erin’s laughter over candlelight, Erin’s kiss in the parking lot, Tilly’s words in the editing bay.
Two versions of Erin Calhoun, colliding in her head.
Jamie chewed her lip, whispering under her breath. “I’ll talk to her. I have to know.”
The words felt like a vow.
She turned back to her laptop, but her fingers hovered above the keys, her heart caught between the fire she felt with Erin and the warning that still echoed in Tilly’s voice.
Twenty Five
Erin had never cleaned her apartment this much for anyone.
It wasn’t messy to begin with, but she moved through the rooms with the same focus she used to bring to a briefing she couldn’t afford to botch. She wiped the kitchen counters again until the granite shone. She straightened a stack of mail, tucked it into a drawer, and changed the throw blanket on the couch for a newer one that didn’t carry Leo’s shed fur like a second coat. The framed photos on the bookshelf she dusted with the edge of an old shirt. There weren’t many of them. A picture with her sisters at the cape, one with Leo as a puppy, one of the Charles River at sunset that she had taken on a run. For a half second she almost put them face down, then shook her head and left them where they were.
Leo watched all of this with mild interest from his preferred spot by the window. The dog’s chin rested on his paws, his eyes tracking her as if he understood the stakes. When she paused by the kitchen island, he thumped his tail twice, a slow rhythm on the floorboards.
“You think she’ll like it?” Erin asked.
Leo blinked once and thumped again. Erin decided that was a yes.
The salmon fillets were already out on a plate, rubbed with a thin coat of olive oil and lemon zest. On the cutting board, she lined up asparagus spears like a neat row of soldiers, trimmed the ends with small, efficient cuts, and rolled a lemon under her palm to soften it. The bottle of wine she had chosen sat on the counter with two glasses beside it, their rims catching the last of the daylight.
She told herself this was simple. Not a production, not a performance. Thenshe caught sight of the extra napkins she had folded precisely and laughed under her breath at herself.Casual, she thought, but her heart had other plans.
The knock on the door arrived as a bright tap that made her pulse leap. Leo came alive in an instant, nails tapping on the wood as he trotted to the entryway and gave a small, eager huff.
