“That’s not simple.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
I look at him then, really look, at the way he’s holding himself back just enough, giving me room without stepping out of it, steady in a way that doesn’t feel temporary or conditional.
That’s the part that cracks something open.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I admit, the words quieter than anything I’ve said tonight.
He nods once, like that doesn’t surprise him at all. “Then don’t.”
I frown slightly. “That’s not helpful.”
“It is,” he says. “Because you don’t have to figure it all out tonight. You just have to stop running from it long enough to see what it is.”
There’s no demand or expectation in it, just space.
And for the first time since I got here, that space doesn’t feel like something I have to fill or escape from.
It feels like something I can stand in.
I lean back against the counter behind me, not closing the distance, but not putting more between us either, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“That’s a dangerous suggestion,” I say quietly.
He almost smiles this time. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
And that’s it, the moment something shifts, not everything or all at once, but enough.
Enough that I don’t feel the need to step back.
Enough that the space between us doesn’t feel like something I have to protect anymore.
Enough that when Hadley calls my name from down the hall a second later, I don’t jump, I just push off the counter and go, steady instead of braced.
And as I pass him, close enough to feel the heat of him without touching, I realize something I didn’t expect to feel this soon.
I’m not trying to hold the line the same way anymore.
And that might be the biggest shift of all.
I make it halfway down the hall before something in me tightens again, not sharp, not sudden, just a quiet instinct pulling at the back of my awareness like something isn’t sitting right anymore.
Hadley’s voice is still ahead of me, softer now, talking to herself as she moves between rooms, but there’s another sound layered under it that doesn’t belong.
A shift.
Outside.
I slow without thinking, my hand brushing the wall as I listen harder, trying to separate what’s normal from what isn’t.
The house settles.
Wood creaks.
Wind moves along the porch.
And then—
