“Not all.”
“Not all.”
“You should tell him.”
“I know.”
“Soon.”
“I know.”
She nods. Doesn’t push.
The cafeteria is doing its working noise around us. A tray clatters somewhere behind me. Someone’s laugh from three tables over. Katarina’s phone vibrates on the table — a meeting reminder, probably, the one o’clock — and she silences it without looking at it.
She picks up her water again. Sets it down without drinking.
Her hand goes flat on the table near mine.
Not touching.
Close.
“I’m glad it’s you,” she says.
“What.”
“In Canyon Bay. With him. With this team. With me.” A pause. “You deserved a soft landing somewhere. I’m glad this is it.”
I don’t say anything for a second.
She doesn’t make me.
She just sits there with her hand near mine and waits while I find my way back to the cafeteria.
“I have to get to my meeting,” she says eventually.
“Yeah.”
“Walk me out?”
“Yeah.”
We bus our trays. We walk out of the cafeteria. We don’t say anything in the hall — there are people, there are cameras, there are reasons — but at the stairs she stops.
“Nova.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
She goes up the stairs.
