I got out of the car.
The cold hit me full in the face, sharp and clean, and I pulled my jacket tighter and crossed the frosted grass toward him.Bishop whinnied from the fence—loud, indignant—and I veered toward him first, let him push his nose into my chest, pressed my forehead against his.
"I know," I said. "I missed you too."
He exhaled hard, warm breath against my collarbone, and I stood there for a second with my eyes closed and my hands on his face and felt the knot in my chest start to loosen.
Then I turned to Sawyer.
He was standing now, the second mug held out. I crossed to him and took it and wrapped both hands around it and looked at him in the thin early light.
Something was different.
I couldn't have said what exactly. He looked the same—the medal, the jacket, the particular set of his shoulders. But there was something in his face that hadn't been there before. A carefulness. Like he was holding something he didn't want to drop.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi." His eyes moved over my face. "You look tired."
"I didn't sleep."
"I figured." He looked at his coffee. Back at me. "How was it?"
"Good." I wrapped my hands tighter around the mug. "Really good. The script is—" I shook my head. "It's a great part, Sawyer."
"I know. Ellis sent it over."
"And?"
"You're going to be extraordinary in it."
"Don't," I said.
"Don't what."
"Say things like that when I haven't slept."
He almost smiled. But the carefulness was still there underneath it, and I felt the first cold tendril of something movethrough me. The particular dread of a conversation you hadn't agreed to have.
"Hey," he said. "We should talk."
There it was.
My stomach dropped straight through the frozen ground.
We should talk.Four words and I knew exactly what they meant in every language, in every context, on every set and in every hotel bar I'd ever been in. They meant the thing you'd been careful not to name had been named while you weren't looking and now someone was going to be reasonable about it.
"Okay," I said. My voice came out even. I was a professional.
I was terrified.
He looked at my face and something shifted in his—the carefulness breaking open a little, something more urgent underneath.
"Hey." He stepped closer. "Not—it's not bad, Daniela."
"Okay."
"You just went white."
