Bennett scoffed. “Nothing about me is obvious.”
Jasper leaned back in his chair. “That’s where you are wrong.”
Bennett crossed his arms. “Enlighten me.”
“You like control,” Jasper said easily. “You like plans. You like knowing where things are going.”
“That is not insightful.”
“You also,” Jasper continued, “pretend you are not curious about things that scare you.”
Bennett’s jaw tightened. “This is starting to sound less like banter.”
“Does it?” Jasper asked, keeping his tone light.
Silence settled between them. Not sharp. Just present.
Bennett looked out the window again. “You read too much into people.”
Jasper followed his gaze. “You hide too much from yourself.”
Bennett laughed once, sharp and dismissive. “You barely know me.”
“I know enough,” Jasper said. “I know you did not pull away last night.”
Bennett’s breath hitched before he could mask it.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Bennett said.
“It means something,” Jasper replied. “It doesn’t have to mean everything.”
Bennett turned back to him. “You are very comfortable with uncertainty.”
“I’m comfortable with honesty,” Jasper said. “They are not the same thing.”
Bennett studied him as if he were a problem that refused to be solved. “You ever think you make things harder than they need to be?”
Jasper smiled faintly. “You ever think you make them smaller?”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Jasper said carefully, “that you want things. You just keep them contained until they can’t hurt you.”
Bennett’s voice dropped. “And you think you know what I want.”
Jasper did not answer right away. He leaned forward instead, forearms resting on the table, closing the distance just enough to make the moment feel deliberate.
“I think,” Jasper said quietly, “that if I asked you to say it out loud, you wouldn’t be able to.”
Bennett’s pulse jumped visibly in his throat. “Say what?”
“That you are not indifferent to me.”
The room felt smaller.
Bennett looked at Jasper’s mouth. He didn’t look away.
“I am not indifferent,” Bennett said finally.
