The person on the TV threw a rose into the ocean.
I swallowed. "Something's wrong with Adrian."
Jake stopped mid-chew. Evan's hands paused on a green towel.
"Wrong how?"
I stared at the cheese puff in my hand. "He's been tense. Checking his phone constantly, disappearing for calls, and looking at me like—" I crushed the puff between my fingers, watching it crumble. "Like he's apologizing for something that hasn't happened yet."
"That's ominous," Jake said.
"He said there are complications. With the documentary. The network has expectations he doesn't agree with." I grabbed another cheese puff. "He said he's handling it. That he needs me to trust him."
Evan set the towel down. "And do you? Trust him?"
"I want to." My voice cracked, and I covered it with a cough. "But he keeps saying something's wrong and then doesn't tell me what. That's not how trust works, right?"
Jake leaned forward. "Did he say what the network wants?"
"A certain angle. Chaos. Comedy." The words tasted sour. "A relatable disaster approach."
Jake's expression darkened. "They want to make you look stupid."
"He said he's fighting them."
"Did he tell you what they already have?" Evan's voice was quiet. "What footage exists. What they're planning to do with it."
"Maybe. Sort of. Not a lot of specifics."
I thought about Adrian's hands and how they shook when I stepped back from his reach. It was a tremor in his fingers like he was holding something too tightly and couldn't figure out how to let go.
"I asked him," I said. "Directly. Multiple times.Is there something you're not telling me?And every time, he looked me in the eyes and said he was handling it."
Jake set down the cheese puff bag. "He's definitely hiding something."
"People hide things for different reasons." Evan picked up the towel again. "Fear. Shame. Misguided protection. It doesn't automatically mean he's trying to hurt you."
Jake grunted. "It doesn't automatically mean he's not."
"I implied that hiding and harming aren't the same thing. Sometimes people keep secrets because they're scared. Because they think they can fix something before anyone has to know it was broken." Evan stopped folding for a moment. "That doesn't make it okay. But it's different from malice."
"Evan's right," I said slowly. "Maybe he's scared. Maybe he thinks he's protecting me."
Jake crossed his arms. "And I'm right too. He's hiding something, and you deserve to know what."
"Both things can be true."
"Both things being true doesn't help you, though." Jake rubbed his chin and smeared some orange on his cheek. "What do you want, Pickle?"
What did I want? For Adrian to rewind time? For the network not to exist? For this to be a misunderstanding fixable with a conversation and maybe some athletic reconciliation sex?
All of that was fine, but I wanted to be trusted.
"I don't know," I said finally.
Jake nodded like that was acceptable.
Evan went back to folding.
