“I hate that part.”
“No, you don’t.”
I smiled in the dark despite myself. “No, I don’t.”
A silence settled, but it wasn’t empty.
“We’re lying to people who care about us,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
“What happens if we can’t fix it clean?”
Declan took a while to answer. “Then we fix it honestly.”
My throat tightened. “That sounds harder.”
“It will be.”
I closed my eyes again.
He didn’t promise it would be okay. I was starting to understand that I trusted him partly because he didn’t hand me comfort he couldn’t back up.
“Dinner tomorrow,” he said. “You eat before you go if nerves make you forget. You tell her the truth you can tell. No cruelty. No delay tactics.”
My chest felt heavy, but not crushed. “Okay.”
“And after, you text Roman.”
“Alive or not alive.”
“What?”
“His rule.”
A quiet huff of amusement came through the phone. “Smart man.”
“Annoying man.”
“Usually the same thing.”
I turned onto my side, facing the dresser where the phone glowed faintly. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Actually?”
“Yes.”
I believed him.
That was new too.
The call should have ended there, but neither of us hung up right away. I listened to his breathing through the phone and thoughtabout him in his dark room, his dog on the floor, his wife in another city, his life as tangled as mine and somehow still steady enough to hold a line between us.
