I stared at her. “That was unhelpfully cryptic.”
“You notice when he pulls away.” She shrugged. “That’s not usually what people pay attention to.” She tilted her head. “What about when you’re not around him?”
I frowned. “What?”
“When you’re not with him.” Her gaze stayed on mine. “Do you stop thinking about him?”
I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window again.
The answer came far too quickly.
At last, I swallowed. “No.”
Claire waited.
“Not really.”
For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she wrapped her hands around her cup.
“I think you’re used to being the one who decides how conversations go.”
“That sounds manipulative.”
“It isn’t.” She shrugged. “You’re friendly. People trust you. They open up.”
“And?”
“And this guy isn’t.” Claire watched me for a second. “You keep reaching for something and finding a wall instead.”
The irritating part was she wasn’t wrong.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe my ass.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
“You lead,” she said simply. “Not in an obnoxious way, more a… stabilizing kind of way.”
“I’m a skater,” I told her in a dry tone. “Leading edges are kind of the point.”
She laughed again. “No, I mean with people.” Then she leaned forward. “When we dated, you were always the one deciding things without realizing it. Where we went. When we left. How problems got solved.”
“I asked what you wanted,” I retorted.
“You did, totally. But you’d already started steering the ship.”
I blinked. “I didn’t know I was doing that.”
“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “That’s why it wasn’t a problem. It’s just how you move through the world.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “And that was… bad?”
“Not bad,” she said quickly. “Just not what I wanted.” She shrugged. “I like steering my own ship.”
I thought back through years of interactions all at once and immediately hated how accurate that sounded.
Claire watched understanding dawn across my face and laughed outright. “Oh my God, you really didn’t know.”
