“This is for you,” he says, holding out a sealed file. “Sorry to interrupt. But you looked like you needed saving from whatever hell you were sinking into.”
His words land with a thud.
“And Penn this is a delivery I don’t want to deliver.”
The file feels heavy before I even touch it.
My skin starts to sweat.
No.
He wouldn’t.
Blake wouldn’t file for divorce throughmailroom delivery.
Would he?
I can feel my pulse hammering, a drumbeat of panic across my ribs.
Penn, breathe.
Don’t pass out in front of Dane.
His eyes flick to my phone, then back to my face.
“Dangerous things, those,” he says, nodding toward the screen. “Phones. And memories. Same poison, different casing.”
He’s not cocky this time. Just knowing. Like a man who’s swallowed his own ghosts.
“I’ve delivered files like that before,” he says quietly. “Always ends the same. A woman crying in her heels, clutching her heart like it still belongs to someone who forgot how to keep time with it.”
“It’s probably just a work file,” I murmur, voice breaking like glass underfoot.
He doesn’t argue. Just nods once, slow.
“For your sake Penn,” he says, voice low, “I hope you’re right.”
He lingers a moment longer than necessary, eyes steady, not hungry justhuman.
“Like I said before, Penn text me. If you need silence that listens back.”
He turns to go, and as he brushes past, his thumb ghosts the side of my hand.
Gentle.
Unthinking.
A flicker of something neither of us understands yet.
Then he’s gone.
“WHOwas that?” Carrie gasps, eyes wide, voice pitched somewhere between scandal and curiosity. “And why did he wink at me like he already knew you in the biblical sense?”
I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand, brushing away the heat desire tangled with shame, confusion, ache.
“He’s the mail guy,” I say flatly. “I crashed into him the day after Blake left. You remember. I was late.”
Carrie’s expression softens, the teasing slipping from her face.
