The toothbrush went back in the bathroom. The charger went back on the nightstand. The hoodie went back on the chair.
The duffel bag stayed in the corner. But for the first time since I'd known him, Nico didn't look at it like a lifeboat.
He looked at it like a relic.
16
NICO
It started with the morning.
Kieran was at the counter making tea. I was on the stool beside him, still half-asleep, my hand resting on his thigh the way it had settled there every morning for the past week.
He covered my hand with his, squeezed once, then lifted it off his leg and set it gently on the counter.
"We should talk about the facility," he said.
I went still. My body read the shift before my brain caught up, the way his shoulders had squared, the careful neutrality in his voice, the controlled gentleness of removing my hand. He'd rehearsed this conversation.
"What about it?"
"Park called me last night after you fell asleep." He poured the tea without looking at me. "He's heard rumors. Nothing specific, just noise. Someone mentioned to someone that we seem close, and it filtered up."
"Close," I repeated.
"His word. He asked me directly if the arrangement had become personal."
The kitchen was very quiet. The refrigerator hummed. The mugs sat in their row, tallest in the center.
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him the arrangement was professional and that you'd been exemplary." Kieran set the kettle down. His jaw was tight. "I lied to my GM, Nico. And I need to figure out how to un-lie before Brue figures it out first."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying we need to be more careful at the facility. More distance. Not—not this." He gestured between us. "Not us. Just the public version. Until I can talk to Park properly, on my terms, we need to be invisible."
The words were reasonable. The logic was sound. I heard all of it—the pragmatism, the strategy, the protection of both our careers.
But what I felt was,I'm ashamed of you.
I knew that wasn't what he was saying. The rational part of my brain, the part that had gotten me through eleven months of investigation and exile, understood the difference betweenwe need to be carefulandI want to hide you.But the rational part of my brain wasn't in charge of this conversation. The wounded part was. The part that had been hidden by every person, every team, every institution that had ever decided I was too complicated to claim publicly.
"Sure," I said.
Kieran flinched. The word landed the way I'd aimed it, flat and empty. A door closing. He reached for me.
"Nico, that's not—"
"No, you're right." I stood up. My voice was steady in the way that meant it absolutely wasn't. "We should be professional. That's what this arrangement is, right? Professional."
"That's not what I said."
"It's what you meant." I picked up my mug, poured the tea down the sink, and rinsed it out. I set it back on the shelf—in line, by size, tallest in the center. The ritual of a man imposing order on something because the thing he actually wanted to control was beyond his reach. "I'll see you at the car."
I went to the guest room. I stood in the doorway and looked at the bed, pristine and untouched, and felt the old gravity pulling me back.
I gathered my charger. The hoodie. TheKalevala. I moved them back to the guest room, placing each item in its original position.
