“Then stop talking to me like it is.”
His eyes flash. “I’m talking to you because she won’t listen when I say it.”
Lark stiffens beside the table.
Nolan sees it. Regret moves across his face so quickly that I almost miss it.
“That came out wrong,” he says.
“Most things do when you’re trying to make decisions for me,” Lark says.
His attention cuts to her then, and for the first time since I walked in, the edge in him lowers. Not gone. Just less aimed.
“I’m not trying to make decisions for you.”
She gives him a look.
“Okay,” he admits. “I’m trying not to.”
That pulls a humorless breath from her.
“You don’t know what she’s already dealt with,” Nolan says, turning back to me.
My jaw tightens. “Then tell me.”
He shakes his head once. “Not my story.”
“Convenient.”
“No,” he says, voice sharpening. “Respectful.”
Nolan says it like it’s a fact, as if it’s evidence. Like it’s something I’m supposed to explain.
My gaze moves to Lark, meeting hers immediately, and she doesn’t look away. Not this time. There’s something different in her expression today. Less guarded.
“Yeah,” I say.
Nolan shifts just slightly. Probably wasn’t expecting that answer to come so easily.
“That’s a problem.”
The air tightens, and something low in my chest responds before I can think better of it.
I take a step forward. My boots hit the floor harder than I mean to, the sound echoing through the stripped hallway, bouncing off exposed beams and unfinished walls.
“Is it?” I say.
Nolan doesn’t move.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He exhales slowly. Controlled. Measured. Because that’s what he does; everything with him is controlled.
“That’s not what this is,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the space around us, toward the inn, toward Lark without actually pointing at her.
“This isn’t personal.”
