"Morning."
That's it. That's the conversation. Ezra predicted it last night. One look, one word, the whole thing communicated and resolved. Knox's efficiency with expression is genuinely admirable. I've been studying it for two weeks and I still can't decode how one look can contain I approve, I'm watching, don't hurt him, welcome without any of those things being visible individually.
Toby pushes the muffin plate toward me. "Blueberry. They're Robin's recipe. He's been tweaking the crumb ratio for weeks."
I take a muffin. It's exceptional. Dense, moist, the blueberries bursting with actual flavor instead of the synthetic sweetness of every hotel muffin I've eaten in the past two years. I eat it standing at the counter because I haven't figured out where I belong in this morning routine yet.
Ezra nudges the stool next to his with his foot. An invitation that doesn't require words. I sit.
My phone buzzes. DC area code. I set the muffin down.
"I need to take this." I step into the hallway, away from the counter, away from shifter hearing that I already know won't give me actual privacy. "This is Nico."
"Diana Okafor, NSRC." Efficient, direct, and very good at her job. She asks precise questions. I give precise answers. The whole thing takes twenty-two minutes.
I come back to the counter. Pick up the muffin. Ezra's laptop is halfway closed, which I've learned means he's listening.
"They're filing a formal complaint with the SEC and the Washington State Attorney General's office. The documentation I sent is apparently, her word, 'devastating.' Langford will be notified by end of business today." I take a bite. "She said mostwhistleblowers take months to come forward. I did it in two weeks."
"You did it in one night. The two weeks were figuring out what you were looking at."
"That's generous."
"It's accurate." He pauses. "She said devastating?"
"Her exact word. She also said the hidden project code was 'a gift' from an evidentiary standpoint because it proves intent and concealment in the same data point."
"That was Daniel. He found the codes."
"I know. I told her. He's protected."
We sit with that. Toby and Knox have moved to the other end of the counter, giving us space without making a thing of it. Silas is on muffin four. The morning light comes through the front windows and catches the dust motes in the air and the grain of the oak bar top and the gold edge of Ezra's eyes when he glances at me sideways.
"What are you going to do today?" Ezra asks.
The question stops me.
What am I going to do today? Not what's on my schedule. Not what's my next task. Not what does the assessment require. Just what am I going to do? Today. With the hours between now and tonight.
"I don't know," I say.
It's the, what, fourth? Fifth? time I've said those words since arriving in this town. The first time was at the bar when Ezra asked why I came back. The second was Toby asking why I kept coming. Each time, the words have felt less like failure and more like permission.
I don't know, and I'm not going to fix it. I don't have a report to write. I don't have a property to assess. I don't have an employer sending me somewhere with a laptop bag and a thin file and a mandate to be thorough.
I have a muffin. A stool. A bar.
"Okay," Ezra says. Like that's a complete answer. LikeI don't knowis a valid response towhat are you going to do todayand doesn't require supplemental documentation. He opens his laptop. Starts on the books. The quiet click of keys, the rhythm of a man who does this every day and will do it tomorrow and doesn't need the day to be anything other than what it is.
I sit next to him. I don't open my laptop. For the first time in — years? Since Yale? Since before Yale? — I sit somewhere without producing something. Without a task list or a deliverable or a reason to be in the chair I'm sitting in. I just sit.
It's awful. For about twenty minutes, it's genuinely awful. My hands want to type. My brain wants to plan. The absence of structure feels like a physical itch, the phantom limb of a man who's had a job since he was twenty-two and has never been in a room without a purpose.
I reach for my laptop twice. The first time, Ezra doesn't notice. The second time, he puts his hand on mine — brief, warm, the contact of a man who sees what's happening and is gently preventing it.
"You don't have to do anything," he says.
"I know."
