He smiles, and this one is not for the cameras. Not a warning. Not a challenge.
An opening.
I reach over and touch his bruised hand. Lightly. Question first, pressure second.
Ryan turns his palm under mine.
We sit like that while the city keeps moving and the fries go cold, his hand open beneath mine.
Ryan
The apartment feels different when Peyton is in it without urgency.
No crisis. No slammed door. No grief waiting in a hospital hallway. No sex trying to outrun a thing neither of us can name.
Just Peyton on my couch with one foot tucked under her, hair clipped badly on top of her head, laptop open, a hockey broadcast muted on the television while she makes notes in the margins of a transcript.
I stand in the kitchen with a container of reheated pasta and watch her notice the play before the analyst does.
“Weak side,” she says without looking up.
Onscreen, Evan jumps the lane.
I set the container down. “You are getting annoying.”
“I learned from you.”
“I am not annoying.”
She looks over the laptop. “Ryan.”
“Focused.”
“Weaponized focused.”
I pull a plate from the cabinet.
Peyton looks at the pasta.
Then at me.
“Absolutely not.”
“It is food.”
“It is beige resignation.”
“It has protein.”
“That is not a defense. That is a cry for help.”
I look into the container. It does look bad. I was not going to say that out loud.
Peyton reaches for her phone. “I am ordering Chinese.”
“I have food.”
“You have evidence.”
