Her lips twitched. “Of course he did.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “And he just happened to find an opening one floor below you?”
“He wanted you close,” I said. “To me. To somewhere safe.”
A long exhale left her. “I know.” Her gaze drifted to the window, where sunlight pooled across the sill. “It’s just strange. Being taken care of like this.”
“You okay?” I asked.
Candace didn’t answer right away. Instead, she walked across the room and sat on the edge of the new couch, fingers smoothing the fabric in slow, absent strokes.
“I don’t know what I am yet.” She looked down at her hands. “One minute, I feel like I escaped something I should’ve left years ago. The next…” Her throat worked. “Next I miss him. Or miss the version of him I thought I had.”
I eased into the seat beside her. “That’s normal. It doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice.”
“It feels wrong.” A humorless laugh escaped. “Like I’m betraying someone. Isn’t that fucked up?”
“No. That’s survival rewiring itself. Your body’s still choosing the familiar, even when the familiar hurt you.”
Her eyes shut. “I didn’t expect it to feel like grief.”
“It is grief,” I murmured. “You’re mourning the person you thought he could be.”
“And all the years I wasted believing him.”
She leaned into me and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her something steady to rest against.
We didn’t speak for a minute.
Just sat there while movers worked down the hallway, their footsteps and the scrape of furniture our only company. Her breathing evened out, tension loosening from her shoulders in small, uneven drops.
Eventually, she drew back and wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve. “How’s work?” she asked, reaching for something normal.
I let out a slow sound. “It’s… moving.”
“Moving,” she echoed, eyebrows lifting.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” I admitted. “Every time I do, it hits too hard. And you—” I gave her a small, wry smile. “You’ve been a convenient distraction.”
Candace snorted softly. “Glad to be of service.”
“But it’s more than that,” I said. “Damien told me to stay out of it. Completely. No files. No back-channel updates. No late-night rabbit holes. He said he’d handle everything, and I…” I hesitated. “I’m letting him.”
“Since when do youletanyone handle things for you?”
“That’s the part that scares me,” I said. “My team keeps looking to me for answers, and I don’t have any right now. Not because I don’t want to… but because I’m doing exactly what he told me to do.”
“And you trust him enough to do that?”
“After last week?” I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
Candace studied me for a moment. “This is different for you.”
“It is,” I admitted.
She didn’t push, which almost made it worse. The silence opened up just enough for the other thing—the thing I’d been avoiding—to make itself known.
“He didn’t say it back.”
Candace’s expression softened. “Em…”
