"Your medication compliance is at ninety-four percent this month. That's up from—" She checks the chart. "Eighty-seven last month."
"I'm a model patient."
"You're something, that's for sure." She writes another note. "The board is reviewing your case next week. I need to submit my behavioral assessment by Friday."
"What will it say?"
"That depends on the next forty minutes."
The words land between us. Professional, technically, but her voice dropped half a register when she said them, and she hasn't looked up from her clipboard since.
Twelve weeks. Her visits lengthened from the mandated thirty minutes to forty-five, then an hour. She stopped sitting across the table and started sitting at the corner, close enough that I could smell her shampoo if I leaned forward.
"Six hours this month," I say.
She blinks. "What?"
"Your chart time. Six hours logged across twelve sessions."
"That's—yes. Standard monitoring protocol."
"And the hours not logged?"
Her pen stops moving.
The silence stretches. I let it. Gage shifts his weight by the door, and I wonder if he knows. If he's counted the minutes too. If the total keeps him up at night.
"Four," Hope says finally. "Maybe four and a half. Does it matter?"
"It matters."
"Why?"
Because ten hours means something. Because a woman with her training and her files and her institutional power doesn't accidentally spend ten hours with a convicted murderer unless part of her has stopped seeing the killer. Because every minute she gives me is a minute she's choosing.
"The board reviews your reports," I say instead. "If your logged hours don't match your badge swipes, someone might ask questions."
"Let them ask." Her chin lifts. Defiant. My heart skips—actually skips—and I don't know what to do with that. "I'm conducting extended behavioral observation of a complex case. It's within protocol."
"Is that what we're doing? Extended observation?"
She meets my eyes. Holds them.
"What do you think we're doing?"
The question hangs there.
I could answer it a hundred ways. Could deflect, redirect, maintain the pretense we've both been hiding behind. Could be smart. Instead, I reach under the table.
My hand finds her knee. Bare—she's wearing a skirt today, professional length but soft fabric, and when my palm touches her skin she goes still.
"Jude." Her voice drops on my name. Warning and want in the same breath.
"Keep writing."
My hand slides up the inside of her thigh. Slow. Her skin is warm and alive under my palm, and her thighs press together. I pause, letting her feel the heat of my palm against her skin and make her own choice.
Three seconds. Four.
