I immediately shake my head. "No."
I stare at our joined hands, my brain spinning in a dozen different directions at once. "Maybe?"
Tom laughs softly, the sound rumbling in his chest. His thumb brushes the back of my hand, a steady, grounding rhythm. "Okay. Which is it?"
I laugh too, despite the tightness in my chest. "I need two minutes."
He nods and lets go of my hands. "Take your time."
I stand. My legs are unsteady. I pace in front of his bookshelf. The spines are mismatched—photography monographs next to paperback thrillers, a field guide to urban architecture wedged between two Murakami novels.
I walk. Back and forth. Arms crossed.
Tom pushes the chair out of my path without a word and moves back to the couch.
I make three passes. Four. The tightness in my chest eases slightly with each circuit. On the fifth pass, I stop. Turn. Look at him.
He's watching me, elbows on his knees.
I take a breath and walk back to the couch. Sit down facing him, legs tucked under me.
"Okay." My voice is steadier now. "I need to say something."
He waits.
"You get job offers every week. And any one of them could take you somewhere else. You're freelance. You move around. That's how you work." I press my palms against my thighs and take a deep breath.
"I wish I could say when I saw that job offer, my first thought was 'good for him.' But it wasn't. My first thought was 'he's going to leave.'"
Tom's jaw shifts. He leans forward slightly, but he doesn't interrupt.
"I can't stop you from leaving." The words come out flat, factual. "And I don't know what to do with that. When you could just—leave."
"Sam." His voice is quiet, deliberate. "I'm not planning on leaving."
"But you could." I meet his eyes. "You said it yourself. You get offers every week."
"I do. Most weeks more than one."
I let out a short breath. "Not helping, Tom."
He smiles—small, almost apologetic. "And I've turned down every one of them since I started working with you."
What?
That stops me. I uncross my arms, letting my hands drop to my lap.
"How long can you keep doing that? One day, one of them will be too good to turn down."
"Then I take it." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "I go where they send me. And I come back." He tilts his head. "Sam, we both travel for our jobs. When you travel for a project, you can't tell me the Boss Babes chat doesn't blow up when you miss a Monday."
I bite the inside of my cheek. "Well. It depends on where work sends me. If it's someplace nice, the Babes pretend to be angry with me."
"And?"
"And then they want to see pictures when I get back."
I offer a small, tight smile, waiting for him to laugh and let the joke diffuse the tension. The silence settles between us again. Tom doesn't fill it. He just watches me, waiting.
