Page 61 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

“I was just packing up,” she says, eyes fixed on the desk as if the stapler has become fascinating enough to save her.

“I heard.” I step into the office only after she glances up and lets me. The room smells like her, like paper and tea and the pear warmth that has been haunting my house for weeks. It takes effort not to cross straight to her and touch the blush still softening her face. “About the packing up.”

Her eyes narrow a little, but her mouth betrays her, curving before she can stop it. “Dash.”

“I'm behaving.” I keep my hands visible and still at my sides, because the words need proof. “With exceptional professionalism, considering the circumstances.”

The blush climbs toward her ears. She closes one folder with careful dignity, then tucks it into her satchel. “We already ate dinner at the cafeteria. You don’t have to feed me again.”

“I was going to offer to carry the bag, not cook a second dinner.”

She looks at the satchel, then at me, and for once she doesn't apologize before letting me help. She hands it over. That small surrender lands in me harder than it should, but everything about Callie does now. The weight of her bag in my hand. The little breath she releases when my fingers close around the strap instead of reaching for her waist. The fact that she trusts me to know the difference between wanting to touch her and choosing not to.

We walk out together through the side hall, away from the main faculty lounge and the students lingering near the front entrance. She keeps a few inches between us until we reach the parking lot, then her hand drifts close enough to brush mine. At the passenger door, she hooks one finger briefly around mine before climbing in, and the contact is so small it should not feel like a vow.

The drive home is comfortably quiet. She's tired from laughing and working and living in front of people. Her head rests against the seat, and the passing streetlights move over her face in bands of gold and shadow. Every time the light catches the freckles across her nose, I think about kissing each one until she makes that soft protesting sound she never means.

At a red light, she turns her head. “You’re thinking very loudly.”

“I’m thinking privately.”

“That’s worse.” Her voice is sleepier now, the teasing softened by the day. She looks at my hand on the gearshift and then out the window. “Mara has no boundaries.”

“Mara has several boundaries. She just places them in surprising locations.”

Callie’s laugh is small and exhausted, but it is real. She lets her eyes close after that, and I leave the rest of the drive untouched.

At home, she unlocks the side door with her key. That still gets me every time. The small metallic turn. The ordinary fact of her letting herself into the space I gave her, no longer standing outside it like she needs to be invited into safety every night. I put her bag on the chair near the bedroom door, and she takes off her cardigan slowly, the movement unhurried in a way it never was the first week.

The room is dim except for the bedside lamp. We don't talk about sex. We don't need to. These last few nights have taught us a rhythm neither of us names in daylight: work clothes first, then shoes, then the soft pause where she decides whether she wants my hands or only my body beside hers. I never assume. I never let the wanting in me become louder than the choice in her.

Tonight, she comes to me before I ask.

Her fingers touch the front of my shirt, right over my sternum, and slide down to the first button. She watches her own hands undo it, her lashes low, her cheeks still faintly pink from theoffice. I stand still and let her undress me until she reaches the last button and presses her palm against my bare skin with a sigh that feels like the truth of the whole day.

I lift my hand to her hair. “Can I?”

She nods, then tips her face up. “Yes.”

I take the pins out one by one, setting them on the dresser while her hair loosens over my fingers. She watches me with the soft, dazed concentration she gets when she's letting herself be cared for and can't quite believe nothing will be asked in exchange. When the last pin comes free, I brush my thumb over the curve of her cheek. Her freckles are darker this close, delicate against the flush still lingering there, and I have to breathe through the urge to tell her every thought I have no right to make heavy yet.

Beautiful. Mine. Stay.

I say none of them.

Callie reaches for the hem of her blouse, but I cover her hands gently. “Slow,” I murmur, and the word is for both of us.

She lets me help. I undo each button with care, watching her face instead of the skin I reveal because the permission matters more than the view, even though the view makes my blood heat. Her breath catches when the fabric slips off her shoulders. The old bond mark sits near the curve of her neck, visible now, pale and devastating in the lamplight.

Anger moves through me, familiar and cold.

I want a word with whoever put it there. I want more than a word. I want answers for why she carries a bond like a bruise in her spirit, why the sight of her own phone can drain the life from her face, why a woman this warm learned to apologize before taking up space in a bed she has already been invited to share.

Callie’s fingers touch my wrist. “Dash.”

I look at her instead of the mark. “I’m here.”

“I know.” She draws my hand down to her waist, placing me where she wants me. “Come to bed.”