I was doing it again.
I'd done this in the military too. Watched things deteriorate, told myself it wasn't as bad as it looked, waited for someone else to address the problem. Every time, without exception, waiting had made it worse.
Daemon wouldn't open that door on his own. Hell, he hadn't even answered the text I'd sent him on Sunday. The parking lot had already told me he wouldn't. I could keep being patient, or I could go find out what we were actually dealing with.
I was at Sofia's by eight.
He answered on the second knock, barefoot, in jeans and a gray t-shirt, coffee in hand. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping well. That made two of us.
"Nadia." Something moved behind his eyes. Relief, maybe, or the anticipation of a conversation he knew was coming. "Hey."
"Can I come in?"
He stepped back to let me through.
The apartment was its usual cheerful assault of chintz and porcelain, something I usually found oddly comforting. Right now I barely noticed it. I turned to face him in the middle of the small living room and didn't give either of us time to ease into it.
"Are you in this or not?"
He looked at me. Set his coffee down on the doily-covered side table. "What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what it sounds like. Three days ago you shut me out in a parking lot. Before that, it was the drive home after the meeting. Before that, it was every conversation where anything about the future came up."
I kept my voice level. Calm. The way I'd learned to deliver bad news in the Army. "I need to know if you're still here."
"I'm standing right in front of you."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
He ran a hand through his hair. Looked away, then back. "I've been having a hard time of it, Nadia."
"I know you have. And I'm sorry about your mom, I genuinely am. But this started before the anniversary." I watched him. "Something changed after the meeting. You've been pulling back ever since, and I need you to tell me why."
"I haven't been pulling back. I've been processing."
"For three weeks?"
"Is there a deadline I missed?"
The edge in his voice was new. I felt the flare of anger and let it pass before I spoke again. "I'm not giving you a deadline. I'm trying to understand what's happening between us, because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're getting ready to leave."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Then where have you been?"
That landed. I watched it land, watched him absorb it, and waited.
"I don't know how to do this," he said finally. His voice had shifted. The edge was gone. "I don't know how to be what you need without failing you the way I've failed everyone else."
"You haven't failed me."
"Not yet."
The words sat between us. I looked at him, this man I'd spent six weeks trusting and three weeks watching retreat, and felt the anger drain into something quieter and more complicated.
"That's not something I can fix for you," I said. "You know that."
"I know."
