“I am composed,” I shot back automatically. The very idea that I wasn’t was borderline offensive.
Micah’s eyebrow lifted. Slowly. “You were pacing like a caged animal thirty seconds ago.”
“That had nothing to do with him.” Liar. I was a big, fat liar.
She laughed her pity laugh I knew well. “Ted, it’s okay to like him, or want to like him. Maybe he bypasses the parts you use to keep everyone at a distance. It’s a talent, he did it in college too, but it’s different now.”
My chest tightened at that, because she didn’t know I’d kissed him. She just thought there wassomethinggoing on. There was, and it was a tornado of the unfamiliar inside me. And she was right; he used to be able to disarm me in college, though it was much more academic than sexual… Or maybe I was delusional the whole time and college was just the foreplay. I didn’t know, and I wanted to know.
I turned toward the window, staring out at the strip of sunlit street below. The palm trees lining the sidewalk barely moved in the heat, fronds tipped with gold where the light caught them. A couple of cyclists rolled past, slow and unhurried, their shadows stretching long across the cracked pavement.
I drew in a slow breath, pretending I could feel the warm air, the salt that always seemed to linger around you from the ocean, and the way you’d stay warm all day just from one hit. California knew how to wrap around me like a warm hug. I craved this place. I loved this place. It was home, and with that thought, the tightness in my chest eased, just a fraction.
Pushing my shoulders back and breathing deeply, I murmured, “Today isn’t about him.”
“I know,” she said. “And he knows that too.”
That made me glance back at her. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Because if it were about him, he’d be trying to impress you. Instead, he’s showing up for the girls. He organized this for them. This is a good thing.”
I swallowed. That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.
Micah shifted, planting her feet on the floor now, attention fully on me. “You don’t have to be perfect in there. You just have to be regular Teddy, with a hint of captain.”
My phone buzzed on the counter, the sound slicing through the room.
Micah’s gaze flicked to it, then back to me, lips curving. “And there he is.”
I didn’t pick it up because I knew it would be him. He’d text me last night, saying he was driving us there. He seemed to love doing that, driving me places, trapping me in cars with him.
“He’s not going to derail you,” she added, gentler now. “And if he makes you feelsomethingin the process… that doesn’t make you weaker.”
I closed my eyes, taking one last steadying breath.
“Okay,” I said finally, zipping up my Valkyries hoodie. I caught the weight of my mom’s watch on my wrist and stilled for a second. I didn’t wear it when I trained, never had. It didn’t belong in collisions or mud or anything that might break it. Today, though, I’d put it on without really thinking. Maybe because I wanted something familiar. I guess I wanted to know she’d be there with me. “Do I look okay?”
“Gorgeous, as always.”
The buzzer on the door went this time, and I knew I needed to go. “You should probably go before he decides to come up and witness your pre-public appearance spiral.”
“I was not spiraling.”
“We’ll call it… active processing.”
I snorted under my breath as I walked to the door. “Are you staying here?”
Micah followed, leaning against the frame as I stepped out into the hall.
“I’ll lock up when I leave,” she said. “No promises those protein bars will still be here when you get back.”
I pointed at her. “Those are for recovery.”
“Sorry? Can’t hear you, you’re breaking up, byyeeeee,” she said sweetly and shut the door in my face.
I stood there for a second, staring at the closed door, then shook my head and turned toward the stairs. Each step steadied me, gave me something to count. By the time I reached the bottom, the edge had dulled enough to breathe properly again.
The front door swung open, and the outside hit me all at once—sun already bright, air warm and salty, just like I knew it would be, the city moving on without any awareness of my internal chaos.
