"You're not going back," he said. Not a question.
"Not tonight." I picked up my glass. "Maybe not for a few days. The studio is mine—nobody knows about it except my sister. My car is there. I have what I need." I looked at him levelly. "I know what it looks like. I'm telling you it isn't dramatic. It’s just—practical."
He nodded once, slowly.
"It's the development director in me," I said. "I move pieces around before an event so the day of runs clean." I took a sip of the whiskey. It was good—warm and a little smoky, landing exactly where I needed it to land. "Old habit."
"The school," he said. "Providence Academy."
"They think I'm going to Ireland." I set the glass down. "I had two weeks blocked off for the honeymoon. As far as my colleagues are concerned, I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic tomorrow, having a perfectly lovely time. Nobody expects to hear from me until I'm back." I considered the rim of the glass. "I have time. That's the strange thing. I have more time right now than I've had in years, and no structure to put it in."
"What does that feel like?"
I looked up at him. It was a genuine question, not a conversational placeholder—he was actually asking, actually waiting, with those dark eyes doing what they did.
"Terrifying," I said. "And something else I don't have a word for yet."
The corner of his mouth moved. "Give it a few days."
"I have my car at the studio. I have clothes. I have—" I turned the glass slowly. "I've been living at home since college, whichsounds worse than it was, but it also means I've been saving money for six years. I'm not—I'm not destitute. I don't need to be rescued." I said the last part clearly, because I wanted it said. "I want to be clear about that."
"I know," he said.
"I'm sitting in a bar with a man I met in an alley this morning because I want to be, not because I have no other options."
"I know that, too."
"Good." I took another sip. "I wanted to say it out loud."
He nodded once, easy, unbothered by the speech. That was the thing about him—he didn't require managing. Most of the men in my life required some degree of managing, the careful calibration of what you said and how you said it to avoid a reaction you'd then have to navigate. Brock received information and processed it without drama and moved on. It was disarming in a way I hadn't anticipated.
"Your turn," I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
"You know—" I gestured between us. "You know things about me. I've been telling you things all day, which is not something I typically do, and you've been—" I searched for the word. "Receiving. Without offering much back."
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Something real."
He was quiet for a moment. Not the evasive quiet of a man who didn't want to answer, but the considered quiet of a man deciding where the line was. I was starting to be able to tell the difference.
"I'm from Texas," he said. "West Texas. A town so small it barely earns the word." He turned his own glass. "Military, after that. And other things."
"Other things," I repeated.
"Other things."
"That's very forthcoming of you."
"It's what I've got."
I studied him over the rim of my glass. The jaw and the eyes and the absolute, unhurried stillness of a man who had been in places that required him to become invisible and had never quite learned to undo it. There was a history in his face the way there was history in old buildings—not displayed, not explained, just present, structural, bearing weight.
"Are you in Charleston because of the Dane brothers?" I asked.
Something shifted. Barely perceptible—a microsecond of something crossing his face, gone before it fully arrived.
