He doesn't answer immediately. I count passing streetlights. One. Two. Three.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he says finally.
Which is not the same asdon't apologize, and we both know it.
I fold my hands in my lap and say nothing. I know how to fill a silence and I know when not to, and this is very much a when-not-to. Outside, the city scrolls past, indifferent and bright. ERS has a reputation attached to it, a reputation people have workedfor and tonight we just got photographed holding hands outside a Maddox family event by a man with a smile like a closing trap.
George exhales.
"This should never have happened," he says quietly, still watching the road.
Seven words. They take up all the air in the car, and I sit with them, and I don't ask which part he means.
