Both of them mine. Both of them true.
We walk out together.
The city is still going when we step outside.
Windows lit. Streets full. People spilling onto sidewalks and balconies and car hoods because they waited too long for this to go quietly now.
I have my cameras.
He has the team replica Cup tucked against his side like this is a perfectly normal thing to carry through Canyon Bay after two in the morning.
We walk.
“Tell me about Brick,” I say. “The first time.”
He looks at me. “At the shelter.”
“Yeah.”
He walks for a second. “He just walked over and sat next to my leg. Didn’t do anything. Didn’t perform. Just — sat there. Like he’d decided and that was it.”
I look at him.
“Did you know right away?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“When did you know about me?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. The city going around us and him walking next to me in the middle of all of it, thinking about it honestly.
“Grocery store,” he says.
I stare at him. “The grocery store.”
“Yeah.”
“We argued about possession law in a grocery store for twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
“And that was — “
“I knew something,” he says. “Didn’t know what yet.”
“What did you know?”
He thinks about it. “You argued about possession law with a stranger like the answer actually mattered.” He looks at me. “I knew you meant everything you said.”
I need a minute.
He just described Brick sitting next to his leg and deciding. No performance. Just — sat there.
I look at him walking next to me and I get it.
“You knew in the grocery store,” I say.
“I knew something.”
