My eyes track the movement automatically.
Subject: Red Rock. RUSH assignment. Call me.
Tom closes the laptop and looks at me.
Chapter twenty-eight
Sam
The click of the laptop closing is quiet, but in the small apartment, it lands like a deadbolt sliding into place.
I set down the pad thai container on the coffee table. The cardboard is warm, but my hands have gone completely ice cold.
RUSH assignment.The words are burned into the back of my eyelids.
"Another job offer?" My voice sounds normal. I don't feel normal.
"Yeah." He looks at the closed laptop, then back at me. "Just a query. Nothing serious."
"How many of those do you get?"
"A few a week." He shrugs, reaching for his water. "It's how freelancing works."
A few a week.
The math hits me like a physical blow. He gets hundreds of these a year. He could say yes to any of them. He could pack his camera gear, book a one-way flight to somewhere with better light and fewer rules, and just—leave. Walk away from theHarbor District. From the gallery submission. From this fragile, unmapped thing happening between us.
From me.
I look away, focusing intensely on the bookshelf behind him so I don't have to look at his face. My chest tightens, the air in the room suddenly feeling far too thin. I start mentally building the walls back up, brick by brick.
The couch cushions shift. Tom stands. I hear the scrape of wood as he grabs the chair from his desk and pulls it directly in front of me. He sits down, leaning forward until his knees are almost touching mine. He completely invades my line of sight, forcing me to look at him.
"Sam."
I stare at a scuff mark on the floorboards.
"Do you need to use your safe word?"
I blink.
The walls I am building stall out halfway up.
I slowly turn my head. "My what?"
He reaches out and takes both of my hands in his.
His hands are so warm.
"Don't tell me you forgot your own rule."
I just stare at him, my brain lagging behind my racing heart.
"You need five minutes?" he prompts gently.
The question finally registers. Five minutes. The rule I made. The boundary we agreed on to keep things from exploding.
I open my mouth, close it, then manage, "Yes."
