"Everything is a courtroom if you believe hard enough." He set his coffee down. "So. How was the trail ride?"
"Uneventful."
"Uneventful."
"Horses were involved. We rode them. The end."
Theo looked at Bev. Bev looked at her screen. The silence between them was coordinated and devastating.
"You're doing the thing," I said.
"What thing?" Theo asked, with the innocence of a man who had never once been innocent.
"The thing where you don't ask but you arrange your faces so I feel compelled to volunteer information. It's a strategy and I see through it."
"I have no strategy. I am merely a humble office assistant with a passion for equestrian activities and a genuine concern for your weekend recreation."
Bev turned a page. "He's been like this since he walked in. I tried the look. It didn't take."
"The look never takes on Theo."
"I'm immune to disapproval," Theo confirmed. "It's my superpower."
I put my reading glasses on. Opened the laptop again. "I'm working now. Both of you."
They retreated. For eleven minutes. Then Theo walked past my desk, placed a Post-it note that saidTrail rides don't make people avoid eye contact on Monday mornings — just sayingwith a small heart drawn in the corner, and walked away before I could respond.
I crumpled it. Then I uncrumpled it. Then I put it in my drawer, which was a mistake because my drawer was where the tea tin lived — the one Clay had brought weeks ago — and opening that drawer was becoming a habit I didn't want to examine.
At eleven, Bev came to my desk with a fresh cup and the expression of a woman who had waited precisely long enough.
"I'm going to say one thing," she said. "And then I'm going to leave you alone."
"One thing."
"One."
She set the tea down. Straightened a stack of papers. Then, quiet and direct, the way Bev delivered everything that mattered: "In my experience, the men who punish you for pulling away are the ones you should run from. The ones who give you space to come back on your own — those are the ones worth coming back to."
She held my gaze for a beat.
"That's my one thing."
She went back to her desk. I stared at the tea. Drank it. Didn't taste it.
He texted at noon.
Not about the kiss. Not about Saturday. Not about anything that would require me to feel things I was committed to not feeling.
Starlight settled into her stall last night. Eating well. Jack says she's going to be something special.
Below it was a photo. The mare in the Blackwood barn, nose deep in a hay net, the white star catching the overhead light. She looked calm. Content. Like she'd found the place she was supposed to be and wasn't in a hurry to question it.
I stared at the photo for longer than a horse picture warranted.
He wasn't asking for anything. Wasn't referencing the ride, the hilltop, the moment I'd told him about the folder and watched him not try to fix it. He was just including me. The way he'd been including me since the beginning.
Preston would have punished the pulling away. Not loudly — Preston never did anything loudly. He'd have gone cold. Stopped calling. Waited until the silence became unbearable and I came to him, grateful for the restoration of warmth without realizing I'd been trained to beg for a temperature he controlled.
