Every disciplined part of me tightened.
He swallowed. “Not drills. Not systems. I mean when you say sit, and I sit before I decide if I want to be pissed about it. When you tell me to breathe, and my body tries even if my head is still a disaster. When you tell me to put my phone away and eat. Or stop talking. Or look at you.” His voice dipped. “You know.”
“Yes.”
The word came out rougher than I intended.
Jace’s shoulders loosened by half an inch, like confirmation hurt less than being left alone with his own read of the room.
“I thought it would freak me out more,” he said.
“It does freak you out.”
“Yeah. But not enough to make me want to stop.”
My hand closed over the back of the chair. “Jace.”
“I hate needing stuff,” he said, faster now, but not spiraling. Pushing through before he lost the thread. “I hate feeling like I’m being managed. I hate when people talk to me like I’m one missed appointment away from being too much trouble. I know I’m not easy. I know I make things harder than they need to be sometimes. But I’m not a kid. I’m not stupid. I don’t need someone to take over my life because they think I can’t handle it.”
“I’ve never thought that.”
“I know.” The fight went out of his voice. “That’s why this is hard.”
I stayed where I was because if I moved, I didn’t trust what I would do.
He noticed my grip on the chair. His gaze dropped to my hand, then came back to my face. There was no arrogance in him now. No performance. Just a man standing too close to the edge of something and asking if I saw it too.
“So what happens if I don’t let you pretend this is only because I’m overwhelmed?”
The printer behind us clicked once, then finally went silent.
I answered because he deserved that much.
“I stop pretending.”
His inhale was small, but I saw it.
Then, abruptly, he said, “Red, amber, green.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“The colors.” He dragged a hand through his hair, making the top stand in every direction. “I looked some stuff up. Not enough to become obnoxious about it, probably. Maybe enough to become mildly obnoxious.” He grimaced at himself. “Point is, people use colors. Red means stop. Green means keep going. Amber means slow down or check in because something’s off and I might not be able to explain it fast.”
The blunt practicality of it landed hard.
He wasn’t trying to make this beautiful.
He was trying to make it safe.
“You looked that up?”
His cheeks flushed, but he held my gaze. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“After the locker room.” His mouth tightened. “After I realized I didn’t know what the hell I was asking for, only that I kept wanting it. I started reading, then lost the article, then somehow ended up watching a guy restore a table for twenty minutes. But I found enough.” He rubbed his thumb against his palm. “I don’t want either of us guessing.”
I felt the floor under me and the drop beneath it at the same time.
