"That's not a sentence."
"It's the only one that matters."
Something in me goes still. Not scared. Annoyed in a way I don't fully understand yet. Because this man looked at me like I was furniture when I got out of the car and now he's standing close enough that I can see the stubble coming in along his jaw,and the part of my brain that was supposed to be processingthreat assessmentis processinghis hands.
His hands are big.
Focus, Simone.
"Look." I take a step back because I need the space, not because he told me to. "I appreciate what you're doing. I do. My brother pulled in a favor and you showed up. That's kind. But I am thirty-one years old, I've been chased down alleys in three countries on assignment, and I am not about to spend the next two days being managed like a golden retriever with separation anxiety."
He blinks once. Slow.
"That what you think I'm doing."
"That's what you're doing."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"I'm trying to stay a whole person while you do it."
We stand there a second. His storm eyes do a thing I don't have a name for. Something in his face shifts, not softer, but attentive in a way that feels like being read out loud.
"Noted," he says finally.
That's it. That's all he gives me. One word, clipped at the edges, and somehow it lands harder than if he'd argued.
I turn away because my skin feels warm.
"Is there coffee?"
"In the kitchen."
"Great. I'm going to make some. Don't follow me, Mercer."
"Wasn't planning to."
I walk to the kitchen and do not look back.
The coffee's good.
That's the first surprising thing. I expected camp sludge and I got a dark roast that tastes like someone actually gives a damn. There's a grinder on the counter. Beans in a labeled jar. A little scale.
I look at the setup a long moment.
Precise man.
I file that.
My phone is in my back pocket and I pull it out out of habit before I remember the rule he laid down on the porch. Don't use it without checking. I look at the screen. Three texts from my editor. One from Yara. One from Marcus that saysbe nice to him.
Nice.
I text him back:
define nice
Then I tuck the phone away and take my coffee and walk a slow loop of the downstairs, because I need to map this place the same way I map any new space, and because it gives me something to do that isn't thinking about the way Gray's voice dropped half an octave when he told me I framed myself in the window.
