“Better than okay.” I unlock the car and stand beside it, not getting in yet. The day is clear, the kind of dry and bright that makes the city look sharper than usual. “Your dad walked out with me.”
Silence.
“And?”
“He said you’renot wrong.”
A longer silence.
When she speaks again, her voice has changed slightly, something softer underneath the composure. “About what?”
“About honesty versus careful.” I lean against the car door. “I told him those were your words. He said you weren’t wrong.”
She doesn’t respond immediately. I wait because I know her thinking is silenced by now, and this one needs room.
“That’s…” She stops, then starts again. “That’s more than I expected.”
“It’s a start.”
“It is.” Another pause. “Did you threaten to walk?”
“I strongly implied the organization should think carefully about its priorities.”
“So yes.”
“In the most technically accurate sense.”
She makes a sound I’ve learned to categorize as the one that means she’s trying not to smile and failing at it. “You’re impossible.”
“You knew this going in.”
“I did.” Her voice settles into something quieter. “Reece.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. For this morning. For last night. For…” She pauses, and I can hear her choosing words with the same care she chooses everything. “For not making me feel like the thing that complicated your life. You made me feel like the reason it got better.”
The parking lot around me is completely irrelevant.
“Youarethe reason it got better.”
“Don’t get sentimental. You’ll ruin your image.”
“Too late. It’s all over the internet, apparently.”
She laughs again, the sound fuller this time, and I close my eyes for a second and let it be exactly what it is.
No more hiding.
No more careful distance.
No more treating the best thing in my life like a liability to be managed.
“Come over tonight?” she asks.
“I never left.”
A beat. Then, warmly, “I know. I’ll see you at six. Don’t bring food, I’m cooking.”
