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Blaire gives me a look. “How is that going?”

I almost laugh, but there is nothing funny about the answer.

“Badly.”

“Good,” she says.

“At least we agree on something.”

The sharpness in her voice gets under my skin. I take a few steps back toward the table.

“This is precisely why I stayed away,” I tell her.

“Because once this becomes something else, it does not stay neatly contained.”

“Contained for who?”

“For either of us.”

Blaire’s eyes narrow.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

“I am not making it for you.”

“You disappeared,” she says.

“I gave us space.”

“You gave yourself space,” she quips.

The distinction lands cleanly. I look at her and she holds my gaze.

For six days, I have tried to turn that night into something manageable by refusing to look directly at what happened. Standing here now, I can see how pointless that was.

“Pretending it meant nothing has accomplished absolutely nothing,” I say.

Blaire’s expression shifts.

“Then stop pretending,” she replies.

The room goes quiet around us. I move another step closer.

“You were the one worried about professionalism.”

“I still am.”

“So am I.”

“That doesn’t make the kiss a mistake.”

I stop a few feet from her.

“No,” I say. “It doesn’t.”

Blaire watches me carefully.

“Can you call it one?”