“Not today.”
“Oh.” He said it like he hadn’t meant to sound disappointed. “Right.”
“He’s not on staff.”
“Tell him that.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
Then I shut the door.
The click changed the room.
Jace’s shoulders lifted. His eyes cut to the door, then to me, then away. This wasn’t the equipment office. We weren’t standing under bad fluorescent lights with a storm breaking open between us. It didn’t matter. His body remembered. Mine did too.
I kept space between us and set my tablet on the desk. “Coffee down.”
He looked at the cup like it had appeared in his hand by magic. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Bag on the chair.”
He did it.
“Phone on my desk.”
His eyes came up fast.
“It’s not a punishment,” I said. “You haven’t looked at a single thing on it. Your hand is just using it because it’s there. Put it where your hand can’t run the meeting.”
That got under his skin. I saw pride flare, then irritation, then the effort it took not to throw a comment back at me.
He placed the phone on my desk.
“Sit.”
He chose the chair against the wall, not the one opposite me. Back protected. Distance built in. I noticed. I didn’t call attention to it.
“Feet on the floor.”
His gaze dropped. One heel was already moving.
“Both feet, Jace.”
His breathing caught at my use of his name. Not much. Enough.
He planted both feet flat.
“Hands on your thighs.”
Color rose along his throat. His hands settled on his sweats, fingers spread, restless even in obedience.
The office went quiet except for the low hum of the building waking up beyond the walls.
“Look at me,” I said.
He did.
The exhaustion was worse head-on. His eyes were too bright, the skin beneath them shadowed. His mouth looked tense from holding back words, or maybe holding himself together. Everyone saw the arrogance because arrogance was loud and easy to label. This was quieter. Harder to look at.
