“Why can’t it be both?”
Her gaze didn’t waver, and neither did my resolve. I’d been doing this for years, asked myself the same questions over and over again.
“Aiden—”
“Why tattoos?” I turned it back on her.
In the time we’d spent together, I’d noticed more than a few similarities about the way we did things, approached our work, thought about life. Maybe the only way to make her understand was to use her own situation as an example.
Her posture stayed steady. “Because I love it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
There was none on my part either. “And you’re sure it’s not because you’re trying to prove to everyone else you’re an artist?”
Sage glared at me. I’d crossed a line, and there would be no going back now.
“I know what I like,” she said.
“That wasn’t the question.”
She gave a small breath through her nose. “You think I’m trying to prove something.”
“I think everyone does sometimes.”
She stepped back toward the center of the unit, putting distance between us. The light from the open door caught the edge of her hair. She looked composed, but her hands were busy now, flexing once before settling at her sides.
“We’re not that different,” I said.
She looked at me again. Unconvinced.
“We both make the most of what we’ve got,” I continued. “We build careers around pressure. We perform. We adapt.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she said. “Our worlds are very different. The choices we have to make are—”
“Just admit it,” I said, cutting her off. “It doesn’t matter how hard you deny it, Sage, but you’re guilty of the same thing you just called me out on.”
Silence settled in the space without either of us filling it immediately. Somehow, without even trying, we’d stumbled into enemy territory. Too close for comfort. Too real to go on pretending we were never here.
“I think we play ourselves as hard as we play anything else,” I continued. “Because admitting what we actually want feels riskier than chasing what we already know how to survive.”
Her jaw tightened slightly. Little did she know that I was as unprepared for this as she was. My initial plan was to share something with her that nobody else knew, not to venture into an even deeper secret world we had in common.
“You don’t get to define my motives,” she said then.
“I’m not defining them.”
“Yes, you are.”
I moved toward her. Not close enough to reach out, but hoping to get there without her flinching from my touch. “I’m asking if you’re sure.”
She didn’t answer, and that was the first real crack in the conversation.
She turned toward the door, walking that direction without announcing it. The shift was subtle, but I felt it. The edge of withdrawal.
I reached out and caught her wrist before she’d reached the threshold. Her body halted instantly, attention snapping back to me.
