He had accounted for it.
He had decided how much care to allow.
I sat carefully, fingers curling around the edge of the counter.
“Whatever’s on the stove smells good,” I said quietly, more to fill the space than because it mattered.
“Ennis made chicken marsala.”
Creed set a plate in front of me with precise movements.I waited until he served himself before lifting my fork.The ritual mattered.I didn’t know why yet, but it did.
We ate in silence.
Not awkward.
Weighted.
The kind of silence that pressed instead of drifting.
“I didn’t know you had a house out here,” I said finally.
His fork paused.Not enough to draw attention, but enough to register.“I guess you’re not the only one who kept things to himself.”
The words landed clean.
I didn’t flinch.“I deserved that,” I said.“It’s beautiful.”
After a moment, he spoke again.“It belonged to my parents.”
The words were quieter.
Exposed.
“I grew up here.”
I watched him stare at his plate as if the answers lived there.“My room was the first one on the right.”
His jaw tightened.“When I inherited it, I thought about gutting the place.Thought if I stripped it down far enough, I wouldn’t have to remember.”
He set his fork down.
“It’s still the same.”
I hesitated, measuring the distance between truth and intrusion.
“Why keep it,” I began carefully, “if it hurts?”
His head lifted sharply.“This land has been in my family for generations,” he said, his voice firm.“You don’t abandon history because it’s inconvenient.”
The wordinconvenientcracked just slightly.
I nodded.“Then you don’t run from it,” I said.“You decide what it becomes.”
He held my gaze.
Assessing.
Weighing.
