The money wasn’t a shortcut—it was a tool. Seed money, not a safety blanket. And I wasn’t touching it until I had something real to build with it.
Ledger paused in the doorway, his swim bag still slung on his shoulder. “Are you organizing a Senate hearing?” he asked.
“It’s called planning content,” I said without looking up.
He took in the spread of notebooks, my laptop, swatches of color palettes, and a stack of brand product sheets. “There are color codes.”
“Well, yeah.” I clicked my pen. “It’s how normal humans keep campaigns straight.”
He dropped his swim bag and toed off his slides. “There are tabs.”
I lifted one of the binders. “This one is for product launches. This one is for holiday reels. This one is for sponsored partnerships. Welcome to the thrilling world of home-goods marketing.”
Ledger blinked, like he’d wandered into a foreign country that also sold decorative throw pillows.
“Believe it or not,” I added, “some people prepare for life.”
He shook his head, trudged past me, and went straight for the kitchen sink. He filled a giant cup of water like he’d been wandering the Sahara.
As he drank, he kept looking over at my pile of neat and orderly mess.
I pretended not to notice … and also absolutely noticed.
He gulped down half the cup. “You work like this every day?”
I didn’t look up. “Yeah.”
A moment passed, frozen and weirdly quiet.
“Rox,” he said softly.
My head snapped up. He’d never called me that before.
He corrected quickly. “Roxanne.”
Ah. There it was.
I rolled my eyes. “What?”
His expression softened a fraction. “I had no idea you worked so hard.”
My heart stuttered. It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have felt like anything. If anything, I should have been annoyed that he’d thought I wasn’t a hard worker, that I had been receiving handouts.
But somehow hearing him say that, hearing him recognize it, sent a small spread of warmth through me.
And I had no idea what to do with that, so I snapped the lid of my highlighter shut and said, “Don’t sound so shocked.”
The rest of the day passed quietly—me buried in content drafts, Ledger bouncing between workouts and recovery like a machine. We orbited each other without really colliding, the apartment too small for space but somehow still full of unsaid things.
That night, as I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, the towel bar suddenly detached from the wall and crashed down, nearly decapitating me. I yelped loud enough that Ledger bolted in from the hallway like someone fired a starter gun.
“You okay?” he demanded.
“It attacked me!” I pointed at the towel bar like it was sentient.
He took one look and huffed a laugh. “It was loose, that’s all.”
“I know it’s loose. It tried to kill me.”
