I uncurl my right hand. Extend it across the table. Palm up.
An invitation. Not a demand.
Tom stares at my hand. He goes perfectly still.
Five seconds pass. Ten.
Then his hand comes up from under the table. Slowly. Fighting the instinct to hide.
It hovers over mine. Not touching yet. Heat pools between us before skin even meets.
His hand lowers. Meets mine.
The contact is careful. Tentative. Testing whether I'll pull away.
I don't.
I close my fingers around his. Gentle pressure. My thumb finds the ridge of his knuckles. Traces across them. The skin is dry, rough at the joints. There's a callus on his index finger from holding the camera. A small scar near his thumb I've never noticed before.
This is the hand that captures light. The hand that found angles I missed. The hand that's been two inches away from mine a dozen times and never closed the gap until now.
The hesitation vanishes. He shifts his hand, lacing our fingers together.
He looks up. Meets my eyes. The exhaustion in his face dissolves into relief.
My shoulders drop. My breath comes easier. The constant, low-level hum of anxiety that I’ve been carrying since the boardroom finally goes quiet
"Okay," I say quietly. "We'll figure it out."
Tom's thumb slips down, pressing directly against the frantic, fluttering pulse at my wrist. He strokes the sensitive skin there. Once. Twice. The touch sends heat up my arm.
We sit like that. Hands linked across the table. Coffee gone cold. The espresso grinder whirring. The door chime ringing as customers come and go.
Neither of us lets go.
Chapter eighteen
Tom
SOS
The screen of my phone is lit up with a single text from Sam.
I call. She answers on the first half-ring.
"What's wrong?"
"My laptop crashed." Her voice is brittle, dangerously tight, the sound of someone actively fighting off a panic attack. "The presentation files are corrupted. The hard drive won't spin. I have three days to rebuild everything from scratch."
"I'm coming over." I'm already standing, scanning the room for my keys, shoving my feet into my boots.
"Tom, you don't have to—"
"I'm already grabbing my stuff. Send me your apartment number."
I hang up before she can argue. My jacket is on the chair, wallet in my pocket, keys next to the monitor. I yank the portable hard drive cable out of my tower and drop the metal square into my camera bag. The subway is four blocks west, and the 1 train runs straight down to her neighborhood.
I'm out the door in under a minute.
