He waves me to the visitor’s chair and closes the door behind us. “This was a surprise. What brings you all this way during work hours?”
I hesitate.Maybe I should have called first…
“You said your door was always open.” The words come out in a rush.
A small smile curves his lips. “You’re right. I did say that.” He gestures to the chair. “Sit. You want coffee? Water?”
“I’m fine.”
He settles across from me, studying my face with careful attention. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“Late night?”
“Lab. The simulation finally stabilized. We’ve been running tests all weekend.”
“We, meaning you and Audrey.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
David is quiet for a moment. He’s always been the most measured of the group—slower to speak, more deliberate in his observations. Where Dominic fills silence with noise and Bennett fills it with strategy, David just... waits. Like he knows the important things will surface if you give them room.
“I don’t know how this works,” I say eventually.
“What exactly?”
“Any of it. Talking. Explaining. Being a person who has conversations about feelings instead of algorithms.” I stare at my hands before looking back up at him. “At O’Malley’s you said you know what it’s like to carry things you can’t explain to anyone else.”
“I remember.”
“What did you mean by that?”
He’s quiet for a moment, considering. "I meant that I spent three of the four years I was married pretending things werefine when they weren’t. That I told everyone—including myself—that Michaela’s mother and I just had ‘different priorities’ when the truth was she’d checked out long before she actually left. That I carried the weight of that failure alone because admitting it meant admitting I’d made a mistake. And I don’t make mistakes."
“Except you do.”
“Except I do.” He shrugs. “We all do. The question is whether you let them define you or whether you learn from them and move on.”
I absorb that. It’s not the same as my situation—not even close—but there’s something in the shape of it that resonates. The carrying. The pretending. The fear of being seen as less than what you’ve projected.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” I blurt.
The words come out flat. Clinical. Like I’m reporting test results instead of confessing the thing that’s been eating me alive for years.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. My palms are slick. I’m gripping the arms of the chair like it might eject me from the room.
David blinks. “Sorry?”
“I’ve never kissed anyone. Never been with anyone. Never—” I force myself to breathe. My hands are shaking now. I shove them under my thighs. “I’m thirty-four years old and I havezeroexperience. With anyone. Ever.”
The words sit between us like a grenade with the pin pulled.
David’s face doesn’t change. I wait for it—the disbelief, the pity, the moment where he re-categorizes me from ‘eccentric genius’ to ‘complete disaster.’
But his expression doesn’t shift. He just looks at me with the same steady attention he’s had since I walked in.
“OK,” he says slowly. “Does Audrey know this? Is she pressuring you?”
