“Yeah?”
“Mm.” A pause. “It was a good house.”
Coward.
Both of us.
“The house misses you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Silence.
Heath shifts against my chest, tiny claws catching in the cotton.
Philip’s voice comes lower.
“That sounds like something you should not say to a man at half past midnight.”
“I know.”
Neither of us laughs.
I can feel the edge of it now.
The place the conversation is drifting.
The same place the messages keep circling and refusing to name.
I want to say I miss you.
It is right there.
Ridiculously simple.
Three words.
Not even difficult ones.
I have said harder things to boardrooms full of men trying to convince me I didn’t understand my own patent.
But this is Philip.
And Philip is quiet on the other end of the line, breathing carefully, like he can hear exactly what I am not saying.
“I should go,” he says.
I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“Yeah.”
“Work tomorrow.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Emails, then. Some of us are tragic.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
A tiny pause.
