"Did you?"
"You know I did."
"I remember." His voice had dropped. "You were good at it."
"I'm good at a lot of things."
"I know that too."
Bishop had lost interest in both of us and wandered off. Neither of us watched him go.
“I should have called,” he said suddenly.
I frowned. “Sawyer—I think I’m the one who should have called.”
He shrugged. “We both kind of tapered off, didn’t we?”
"We did," I said.
"That was partly on me."
"It wasn't, though."
"Daniela." He turned toward me. "I watched your career take off from a New Mexico trailer and didn't say a word. That's on me too."
I looked at him. The December dark. The horses and that trailer in the distance with the warm light from inside.
"You were watching?" I said.
"The internet is loud."
"It's not that loud."
"Your agent is good at his job."
I laughed, short and surprised. "He really is."
"You looked—" He stopped. Seemed to decide something. "You looked like you were exactly where you were supposed to be."
My breath caught in my throat.
He'd been watching. Quietly, from a distance—not making a thing of it, not sending a single text about it, just watching my career catch fire from a trailer in New Mexico and deciding that meant she's where she needs to be, leave her alone.
I didn't know whether to be grateful or gutted.
Both, probably.
The truth was more complicated than either of us had made it. I had been where I was supposed to be. The meetings and the red carpets and the industry mixer in the green dress—all of it was real, all of it was what I'd been working toward, and I wouldn't trade it. I couldn't.
But I'd also lain awake in more than one hotel room thinking about his trailer and his hands and the specific quiet of his voice and wanted that too, just as much, and not known what to do with wanting two things that didn't fit together neatly.
I still didn't know.
What I knew was that I was standing in a field in December with cold air in my lungs and him two feet away and the trailer light warm behind us and I was done being careful about it.
I took a step toward him.
"Where do you think I want to be right now?" I said.
