It was her suggestion, or maybe mine, I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but we carry our plates out onto the patio and sit in the morning sun with the desert stretching out in every direction and the coffee going slowly warm in our mugs. The kind of breakfast that doesn’t ask anything of you.
She eats everything on her plate, which I notice and don’t mention.
Afterward, we bring the plates back in, I top up both mugs, lean against the counter, and that’s when she asks, “So what’s the plan today?”
I set my mug down.
“I’ve got to go to the clubhouse.”
Her expression shifts, subtle, but I catch it. That particular combination of interest, curiosity, and something else underneath, and I already know exactly where it’s going.
“Do you go every day?” she asks.
“Most days.”
She nods slowly, the way she does when she’s already decided something and is just working out the best angle of approach.
“No,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t need to.”
She sets her mug down and leans forward on the stool, blue eyes direct and steady. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
Turning to face her fully, I study her. “You want to come.”
Not a question.
Her lips press together for just a second before she exhales. “Yeah,” she admits. “I do.”
“Not happening.”
Her brows pull together. “Tate—”
“No.”
“You don’t even—”
“I don’t need to hear the rest.”
She slides off the stool and stands. There’s something in the way she does it with that quiet, deliberate straightening that tells me this isn’t going to be a short conversation.
“You said I wasn’t a prisoner here.”
“You’re not.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
Stepping closer, I keep my voice even and my hands loose at my sides. “I’m treating you like someone who doesn’t understand what she’s asking.”
“And you think I don’t?” she challenges.
“I know you don’t.”
Her eyes flash, cheeks flushed, breath just slightly uneven, and for a second, I forget what I’m about to say next. She’s standing there in her pink dressing gown and her eyes burning with that stubborn, undefeated fire, ready to go ten rounds on something she hasn’t even fully thought through yet.
It does something to me that I file away immediately and don’t look at.
