"He works for Coldwell. He was sent here to buy our home. Whatever I — whatever the lion — it doesn't matter. He's not someone I can—"
"You don't know that."
"I know that he showed up with a property file and a corporate card and a directive to make Knox an offer. That's not ambiguous."
Jason is quiet for a moment. He picks up a glass, starts polishing it — the nervous tic of a man who needs his hands busy when his brain is working.
"Knox's lion decided about Toby in about four seconds," Jason says. "You were there. We all were. Toby walked in soaking wet in a cat cardigan and Knox went—" He makes a sound that's a fair approximation of a lion's brain short-circuiting.
"Knox and Toby are different."
"How?"
"Toby wasn't sent here by a company that wants to buy us."
"No, Toby stumbled in from a storm. Which is arguably worse, as far as first impressions go." Jason sets the glass down. "I'm just saying — fighting your lion is your call. But make sure you're fighting it for the right reason. 'He works for Coldwell' is a reason. 'I'm scared' isn't."
"I'm not scared."
Jason gives me a look that says exactly how much he believes that. Then he goes back to the kitchen, because Jason always knows when to push and when to leave.
I'm not scared.
I'm terrified.
Not of Nicholas — of what wanting him would mean. Of building something on a foundation that could be a lie. Of my lion being right and my brain being wrong, or my brain being right and my lion being wrong, and not knowing which scenario is worse.
* * *
Nicholas arrives at noon. He sits in his booth. Orders the IPA. Opens his laptop.
I don't look.
I feel him, though. That's the thing about a lion's decision — it's not just emotional, it's sensory. My hearing sharpens when he's in the room. I can track his heartbeat from the bar, steady and controlled, the pulse of a man who manages everything including his own circulatory system. I can smell him — the hotel soap, the leather of his bag, the coffee he had this morning, and underneath all of it the warm, specific scent that my lion has filed underimportantin a folder I can't delete.
The afternoon is its own kind of torture that I'm sure someone has written about in a book Silas has read. Two people in a room, aware of each other, pretending not to be. Every sound he makes is specific and cataloged — the shift of his weight, the tap of his keyboard, the scratch of his pen in the leather notebook. Every twelve minutes he does a room sweep, and I know this because I've been counting, and every twelve minutes his eyes pass over me without stopping and it's the absence of contact that I feel, not the presence.
***
Night. The bar is closed. Knox is in his room with Toby. Silas is reading. I'm on the back porch, sitting on the steps, not feeding Mango, who is sitting next to me eating tuna from a can I didn't open.
The night is cold. Mountain cold — the kind that settles into your bones and makes the stars sharper. The garage is dark, the bikes lined up like sleeping animals, the gravel lot empty except for the ghosts of customers who don't come.
My phone is in my hand. The app is open.
Nicholas's profile. The one he doesn't know I know about. The photos — the swim trunks one, and another, Nicholas at what looks like a rooftop bar, sunset behind him, smiling in a way I've never seen him smile in person. Open. Unguarded. The smile of a man at a party with people he trusts, and even in a photo you can see that it's rare.
Looking for: something that doesn't require an NDA.
Interests: Data analysis, bad hotel Wi-Fi, nachos (recently).
He updated his profile. Recently, based on the nachos reference. He's sitting in a hotel room updating his dating profile and he putnachosin his interests.
Mango butts her head against my hand. I scratch behind her ears.
"I'm in trouble," I tell her.
She purrs. It's not sympathy. It's the general contentment of a cat who has tuna and a warm hand and no opinion about the romantic entanglements of the person providing both.
