His eyes flash. "Is that a promise?"
"Yes."
He kisses me once more—softer now, almost tender—then helps me off the table. By the time a guard's shadow passes back the other way, we're sitting on opposite sides, professional distance restored, nothing visible except the flush on my cheeks and the intensity in his gaze.
"Whatever you're writing in that notebook," he says quietly, "be careful who reads it."
I think about my documentation. The patterns I've recorded. Everything that's closing in around both of us.
"I'm always careful."
"No." His voice drops, dead serious. "You're not. That's the problem."
I laugh. He doesn't.
Gage knocks at thirty minutes. I stand, smooth my shirt, and walk to the door. Neither of us says goodbye.
I spend the rest of the day in the admin wing, pulling everything I've missed. Medication logs, incident reports, staffing records. Two weeks of changes that nobody told me about, and none of them look right.
The parking lot is half-empty by the time I leave.
Gage is leaning against my car, arms crossed, watching the facility doors. When he sees me, he straightens. Doesn't move toward me. Just waits.
I stop a few feet away. "Gage."
"I gave you that time in there." His arms are still crossed. "Don't get used to it."
His voice is tight, but not angry. I can't place it.
"Thank you. I know you didn't have to do that."
He nods. Shoves his hands in his pockets, pulls them back out.
"Look," he says. "He can't take you anywhere."
I blink. "What?"
"Jude." His eyes meet mine, brown and steady. "He can't take you to dinner. Can't walk with you in daylight. Can't be seen with you anywhere that isn't behind locked doors."
That stops me. I hadn't thought about it in those terms—the limits of what's possible, the walls that will always exist between the inside of that facility and the outside world.
"But I can."
My breath catches.
Gage unfolds his arms, takes a step closer. Close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, the stiffness in his neck, the way he's holding himself carefully still.
"Dinner," he says. "Daylight. Normal things. Things you deserve."
"Gage—"
"I'm not asking for an answer." His voice is rough, honest. "I'm laying it down plain. You should know you have options."
Options. I turn the word over.
He's close now. Close enough that if I leaned forward, if I tilted my chin up...
I don't move. Neither does he.
