Page 154 of Silent Shadows

The gesture is so unconscious it almost undoes me.

Like care is instinct.

“My point, though,” he says, settling back into the couch, “is that your clip makes it feel… human.”

“Human?” I repeat.

“Real,” he corrects. “You’re not mocking people for believing, and you’re not screaming at people to believe either.”

His voice roughens slightly around another cough. “You’re asking questions.”

The way he says it makes something shift inside me.

“You really think people care?” I ask.

He gives me a look.

A very Miles look. Half disbelief, half please stop underestimating yourself.

“Daisy.”

“What?”

He scrolls through his phone where the post is pulled up. “You’ve had strangers arguing in your comments for four hours over whether it is scientifically responsible to live with wonder.”

“That does sound kind of iconic.”

“That’s my point.”

He shifts closer so we can both see the laptop. Just enough that our shoulders touch beneath the blanket.

He clicks through engagement numbers.

“These saves?” he says, tapping the screen. “That matters.”

“Because it means they’re coming back,” I say, smiling. My marketer brain activates for the first time in weeks.

For one electric second, we’re both grinning. Lit up. Building something. Together.

“Honestly, I didn’t want it to go this way,” he says. “I didn’t want to feel like we were being characterized, but what you’ve done is so honest. If this is what it takes to tell our story, I’m in.” He smiles again, then coughs and drops his head against the back cushion.

“Okay,” he mutters. “I’m dying now.”

I snort. “You’re dramatic.”

“You infected me.”

“Did not.”

He laughs hard enough to cough again. Then winces.

I sigh. “You need medicine.”

“No.”

“You are a thirty-something-year-old man.”

“Not at heart,” he rasps.