Feel it.
Placed with intention.
Every detail considered.
Not to frighten her.
Never to frighten her.
It was a gesture. A reminder.
A counterpoint to Blackwell’s performance.
A thread woven from something truer.
Her expression shifted—something passed through her face in the glow of the streetlamp.
Uncertainty?
Recognition?
A flicker of knowing?
It was enough.
He felt it strike through him like heat.
She didn’t pick it up.
Didn’t need to.
Seeing it. That was everything.
She walked past it.
Chin set.
Pace clipped.
Pretending.
Trying to outrun what she knew.
But she had seen it.
That was the point.
He smiled then—quiet, satisfied.
She could dismiss it.
For now.
But the connection was there.
Planted. Rooted.
Growing.
