Chris’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “I’m sure they did.”
His voice carries an edge that catches me off guard. Not anger, exactly, but sharper than the response warrants. I glance between them, sensing an undercurrent I don’t understand.
“Nina’s always been good at seeing what people need,” Callie interjects, clearly sensing the tension and trying to steer us back to safer ground. “Even when they don’t know it themselves.”
The irony of the statement isn’t lost on me. If I’m so good at seeing what people need, why am I sitting here carrying secrets that are eating me alive?
The rest of dinner passes in a blur of conversation and food-inspired silences. I smile when I’m supposed to, laugh at Mason’s jokes, compliment Marcella’s tres leches cake. But underneath it all, I’m drowning in everything I haven’t said.
When the last forkful is finished and Mason starts gathering serving dishes, I spring into action.
“I’ll clear,” I announce, already reaching for the nearest plates.
“Nina, you don’t need to—” Marcella starts.
“Please,” I say, the edge in my voice surprising even me. “I need to move.”
I gather dishes with perhaps more efficiency than necessary, grateful for the task that gives me an excuse to escape the attention of everyone at the table.
The kitchen is blissfully quiet after the laughter and conversation of the patio. I set the dishes beside the sink and grip the counter, trying to steady my breathing. The marble is cool under my palms, grounding me in something real and solid.
Just a few minutes. That’s all I need. A few minutes to collect myself before I have to go back out there and pretend everything is normal.
“You okay?”
I spin around. Chris is standing at the edge of the tile, hands in his pockets, expression concerned.
“Fine,” I say automatically. “Just needed a minute.”
He steps into the kitchen, and suddenly the room feels smaller, the air thicker.
“You’ve been off all night,” he says quietly. Not an accusation—an observation. “And not office-off, not the I-wasn’t-expecting-you kind of off. This is different. You’re keeping distance from me in a room full of people who love you, and that’s not us.”
He’s right. It’s not us. Even at our worst, even after he left, I’ve never been careful around Chris. Guarded, yes. Angry, absolutely. But never this—this measured, clinical distance that belongs in a session room, not a kitchen with someone I’ve loved almost all my life.
“I’m carrying too many things at once,” I say. It’s the truest thing I can offer without detonating everything. “Feelings about you, about Wyatt, about what that night meant and what it changed. And I don’t know how to hold all of it in the same room.”
His jaw works for a moment. “Is this about the job? About Amador and Flores?”
Of course that’s where he goes. It’s the thing he can name, the threat he can assess.
“No,” I say. “The work is fine. They’re... complicated, but that’s not what’s doing this to me.”
His eyes search my face, and I can tell he hears the shape of what I’m not saying—knows there’s more underneath.
“What did it change, that night?” he asks, moving closer. I catch the woody spice of him and the proximity makes it harder to think.
Everything. It changed everything.
But I don’t say that, and my silence must tell him enough, because he fills it himself. “That night meant so much more than I realized. And I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye.”
“And now?”
He reaches up, fingers ghosting along my cheek. I should step back. Should maintain distance. Should remember that Wyatt is just outside, that I haven’t finished the conversation that matters most.
Instead, I lean into his touch.
“Now I think I was an idiot,” he says.
