Arching a brow, I eyed him. “I’ve had coffee.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“You monitoring my intake now?” I asked lightly.
“No,” he said. “Your patterns.”
Of course he was.
He crossed to the counter, opened one of the cabinets I hadn’t bothered with, and pulled out a plain paper bag I hadn’t seen before. Set it on the table between us.
“Delivery,” he said. “Came with the supply drop.”
I eyed it suspiciously. “That wasn’t here this morning.”
“No.”
“You held out on me?”
“I waited,” he corrected.
“For what?”
“For the moment when it wouldn’t feel like a favor.”
It shouldn’t have mattered. Somehow, it did.
I opened the bag. Sandwich. Chips. A piece of fruit. Nothing fancy. Nothing indulgent. Thoughtful in the way that suggested observation, not effort. There was also a bottle of electrolyte water—cold, sweating condensation—like he’d anticipated the way I treated hydration as optional until it punished me.
“You asked what I liked,” I said slowly. “On a date.”
“I remember.”
“This isn’t whiskey.”
“No,” he said. “It’s fuel.”
I laughed despite myself. “Romantic.”
“That’s not what this is.”
There it was again—that refusal to let things drift where they wanted to go. I took a bite anyway. The food grounded me. My shoulders loosened. My hands steadied.
Brewster didn’t sit. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed loosely, watching the room rather than me. Giving me space. Letting the moment exist without owning it.
Which, of course, made me acutely aware of him.
“You do this on purpose,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Create intimacy and then pretend it isn’t.”
His gaze flicked to mine. Brief. Assessing. “I’m not pretending.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit,” he said carefully, “that proximity changes perception. I manage that.”
