"Not this housing." Grace is already standing. Grabbing her bag. Her coat. She moves with the purposeful energy of a woman executing a strategic withdrawal.
She pauses. Looks at Jane. Abandons all pretense.
"I’ll take the car. You can leave with… Coach. You two need time that isn't a crowd and a Jumbotron. I am giving you that time. You're welcome."
"Thank you," I smirk.
Grace points at me. "I like him a lot."
She steps out of our booth and leans down and kisses the top of Jane's head. Then she straightens then looks at me with the direct, unhesitating assessment of a twenty-two-year-old.
"She doesn't ask for things," Grace says. Quiet enough that it's between us. "She just—rearranges herself to fit. She's been doing it her whole life."
Her eyes hold mine. "Don't make her do that."
She doesn't wait for an answer.
She's out the door twelve seconds later.
The table feels larger without Grace.
Jane is looking at her coffee. Turning the mug a quarter-rotation. The particular motion of someone whose hands need something to do while her brain is running two lanes of traffic.
"She's subtle," I say.
"She's a sledgehammer in a human costume." Jane looks up. The corner of her mouth pulls. "She's also not wrong."
"About which part?"
"All of it, probably." She turns the mug again. "I do that. Rearrange."
"I know."
"It's not—I don't do it to disappear. I do it because the geometry usually works better that way."
"Jane."
She looks up.
"You don't have to disappear in this," I say. "Whatever this is. Whatever it becomes. It’s why I didn’t say…"
She holds my gaze. Then the look that takes her a moment to produce—the one where she lets herself be seen instead of managing what's at the forefront.
"What do you want?" she asks.
I lean forward. Elbows on the table. Close enough that the noise of the bistro becomes irrelevant.
“You. Here. But not because of me. Not rearranging your life. Not performing. Not fixing something for someone else. Can you see a future here that belongs to you? Not for me. For yourself. Even if I wasn’t standing next to you?”
She stares at me.
"That's a lot," she says. The mug stops rotating.
She sets it down. Flat palms on the table.
"I’ve been thinking for a while," she shares. "Technically, I can structure my business so I work just from my laptop, but… I really like the human aspects of it. The community…"
"And Grace—"
