Not new-new, exactly. More like government-issued vinyl, dust, and whatever industrial cleaner someone had used before handing me the keys. It was white, boxy, practical, and blessedly not dying. The air conditioner worked. The brakes didn’t shriek. The temperature gauge stayed exactly where it was supposed to stay, which felt almost indecent after Dolores.
My new work phone sat in the cup holder, mounted badly because I had not yet emotionally bonded with county technology. It kept giving me directions in a calm female voice while I drove toward my first reservoir assignment.
Collect water samples.
Record air temperature.
Measure dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, conductivity.
Document shoreline conditions.
Take photos.
Upload report before end of day.
Normal science things. Solid things. Things with labels and procedures and forms.
My life had needed forms.
Two weeks ago, I had been feeding a stray cat turkey outside a sad apartment and applying for jobs at three in the morning because an ex-professor with a fiancée and a conscience problem had humiliated me in a dive bar. Now I was in Santa Fe, driving a county truck through bright desert morning with a field kit strapped in the backseat and an ID badge clipped to my shirt.
It was fine.
Everything was fine.
I was absolutely not thinking about Mason.
That had become a daily exercise. Wake up. Feed Bandit. Drink coffee. Do not think about Mason. Shower. Do not think about Mason. Drive past any motorcycle. Do not think about Mason. Hear a low male voice at a gas station. Fail slightly, then recover.
We had sworn never to speak about what happened.
That was the agreement.
Technically, it had not been spoken in complete sentences, but the meaning had been clear. What happened between the desert Airbnb and my new apartment stayed there. Buried. Filed away. Redacted from the official record.
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel and focused on the road.
The reservoir was forty-three minutes out.
Plenty of time not to remember the way his hand had settled at my lower back when we reached my apartment stairs. Not possessive. Not soft. Just there. Steady. Like he expected the building to prove itself before he trusted it with me.
He had walked me all the way to the unit, carrying my backpack over one shoulder and my laptop bag in his hand because apparently “I can carry my own stuff” had meant nothing to him as a legal statement. The landlord met us outside, a thin man named Jimmy with a patchy beard and a shirt thatsaid Grill Sergeant. He had looked at my chest before he looked at my face.
Mason noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He stepped half an inch closer to me and gave Jimmy the kind of silent stare that probably made men reconsider unpaid parking tickets.
Jimmy found my eyes fast after that.
The apartment was spare but clean. One bedroom. One tiny office. Scuffed floors. White walls. A kitchen with old cabinets and a window over the sink. But the sunlight was good. Really good. It filled the living room in the afternoon and made the whole place look less empty than it was.
Mason checked the lock.
Then the windows.
Then the bedroom closet, because apparently closets were suspicious.
