“You always this… still?” she asked.
“What?”
“When you sit.”
I frowned. “That’s a weird question.”
“I’m asking it anyway.”
I thought about it.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Who I’m with.”
That made her pause.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that I noticed.
She tapped her pen once against her notebook.
Then said, “And what am I?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
That was the problem.
Because there were too many answers.
None of them simple enough to say out loud in a café on a Saturday morning.
So I went with the safest one.
“Annoying.”
She huffed a quiet laugh.
“Fair.”
But she didn’t look offended.
That was the problem.
She looked… like she liked that answer.
Like it fit.
Like it gave her something to push against.
Rowan leaned back slightly in her chair for the first time since I got here.
Her knee slid away from mine.
Small thing.
