It stood in stark contrast to my own situation—crashing on a boat that wasn’t mine, living out of a duffel like I was still deployed, everything provisional, nothing rooted. I told myself it didn’t matter. That it was temporary. That I didn’t need more than that.
She’d told herself the same thing.
The boat didn’t agree.
I closed the door behind us and stayed where I was for a beat, watching her the way I’d learned to do when someone was holding themselves together by will alone.
Instead of sitting, she leaned back against the counter, arms folded loosely, eyes unfocused—already somewhere else.
I recognized that look. The slow, dangerous inward turn of someone connecting dots they didn’t want to see.
“Madden.”
Nothing.
I unpacked the food without asking. Set the pastries out. Poured coffee into the mugs neatly stored behind a little railed shelf. I nudged a plate toward her. “Sit.”
She gave me a look that might’ve been reflexive irritation if it hadn’t been dulled around the edges. “I’m not?—”
“Sit,” I repeated, firmer this time.
She hesitated. Then complied, sliding onto the bench seat and drawing her knees up slightly, like she was trying to make herself smaller without meaning to.
That did something ugly to my chest.
I sat across from her and waited. Let her pick at the pastry. Let her take a sip of coffee. Her shoulders stayed tight, like she was holding herself together by will alone.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Talk to me.”
Her fingers stilled. “I am talking to you.”
“No, you’re spiraling quietly and hoping I don’t notice.” I leaned back just enough to keep from crowding her, even though every instinct I had wanted to close the distance. “Which isn’t going to work.”
She huffed a breath. “You don’t have to babysit me.”
“I know. I want to.” Color me surprised.
That got her attention.
Her gaze lifted, sharp despite the exhaustion. “That’s not?—”
“Don’t,” I cut in. “Don’t lawyer me. I’m not making an argument. I’m stating a fact.”
Silence stretched between us, thick but not hostile.
She broke it. “I can’t stop circling around what Rosa said.”
“I figured.”
“She’s not the target,” Madden said quietly. “Not specifically.”
I nodded once. “No.”
“She’s a category.”
That time, I didn’t answer right away.
Instead, I cataloged what I’d missed before—how her stillness wasn’t stiffness, how her reserve wasn’t snobbery, how the control she carried wasn’t distance but containment. She cared. Deeply. Enough that she had to keep a tight lid on it or it would drown her.
