Page 74 of Keller

He goes quiet, like he’s deciding how much to give me.

I know I'm falling for him, but now, here with him like this, I don’t fight the thought. I don't shove it down or qualify it with conditions. I just let it exist.

His hand comes up to brush hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. The gesture is small. Domestic. It shouldn't hit as hard as it does.

"You look different," I say. He’s still thinking. I can see it in his eyes. So I give him somewhere softer to land.

"Different how?"

"Without your glasses. Without the suit." I study the angles of his jaw, the slight stubble coming in. "Less like you're running a room."

Something flickers across his face. It’s not offense, I don’t think. Recognition, maybe.

He turns his head on the pillow to face me more fully. In the low light from the window, his eyes look almost black. I reach up and trace my finger along his jaw.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Our life took a pretty drastic turn when our mother died. I think it hit each of us differently. My mom balanced out the hardness of him, our father."

He didn’t brush it off. He just needed a minute. Butterflies dance in my stomach at the thought of him opening up to me.

I remember how he reacted at the tarot table when his mom came up. The way he left, blaming it on cramps, as if it had nothing to do with a subject he didn't want to discuss with a stranger. I knew better.

Whenever she comes up, something shifts in him. I desperately want to know more.

"What was she like?" The question leaves my mouth before I fully decide to ask it. "Your mom."

His hand stills on my back. He doesn’t pull away when I ask, but I'm guessing my question is jarring. I immediately wish I could suck it back into my body to avoid risking shattering this moment.

“She died when I was eleven,” he says quietly.

I nod against him. I know that part. He told me once before, clipped and matter-of-fact, like he was reciting something from a file. This feels different. Softer.

"I remember you said that. You were so young."

“I used to worry I would forget her, so I would recite things in my mind about her. The thing that is most recognizable in my memory is her laugh,” he continues. His gaze drifts past me, somewhere toward the ceiling.

“It was loud. Not polite. She didn’t care if it carried across a room.”

A small smile tugs at his mouth, and it’s so unexpected that my chest tightens. I drag a finger down the indent between his abs, letting him know this is a safe space.

“She did everything that way,” he says. “Big. Unapologetic. If she loved something, she loved it out loud. She always said it was her Italian heritage.”

My fingers continue moving, now tracing perpendicularly as I go from one side of his hip bone to the other. Goosebumps rise on his skin.

“She wore jasmine,” he adds. “The whole house smelled like it when she’d just come in from outside. My father hated it. Said it gave him a headache.”

“And she kept wearing it,” I guess.

His mouth curves slightly. “Of course she did. She wasn't going to be held back by anyone, including the domineering Robert Stone.”

The ceiling fan clicks above us, steady and rhythmic. Outside, a car rolls past, tires hissing over pavement.

“She used to tap her nails on the kitchen table when my dad went on too long about something,” he says. “This little impatient rhythm that drove him insane. But it worked. He would realize it and stop going on and on.”

I can see it. A woman who refuses to shrink. A woman who balances out sharp edges with noise and scent and movement.

“She sounds like a wonderful person, Keller,” I say quietly.

His jaw tightens for half a second before easing. “She was. But she was human, too, you know?”