Page 174 of Suite 7

I set the phone down and stare at my computer screen. The copy approval is still waiting. The Henderson proposal is still open in another tab. All of it exactly where I left it, and I can’t look at any of it.

I call Kane. He answers on the second ring. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“She texted me.”

Silence. Then, quietly: “When?”

“Just now. She asked to have Sunday coffee. At the place near her apartment.”

I hear him exhale, slow and careful, the sound of a man setting something down he’s been carrying for weeks. “It’s a good sign, Vera.”

“I know. But I’m terrified.”

“I know you are.”

“What if she wants to — what if she’s decided she can’t⁠—“

“She reached out.” His voice is steady. “She didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“So she wants to try.”

“Yeah.” I take a breath.

“You’re going to be fine.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it keeps being true.” A pause, and I can hear him moving, the familiar sounds of his penthouse in the background — a drawer, the quiet of his kitchen. “Come over after work and we’ll talk through it. But Vera?” He waits until I make a small sound of acknowledgment. “She texted you. Let that be enough for today.”

I close my eyes. “Okay.”

After we hang up I sit with the phone in my hands.

She texted me. After six weeks of not-checking and telling myself I wasn’t checking, she texted me.

It’s not forgiveness yet. It’s not Thursday wine nights and oat milk lattes and the easy closeness of a friendship that doesn’t need to work at itself. But it’s Sunday coffee.

It’s a start.

I change clothes three times Saturday night.

Kane watches from the doorway of our — our, still new enough to notice — bedroom, arms folded, expression carefully neutral.

“The blue one,” he says finally.

“What if it’s too⁠—“

“It’s coffee with your best friend. Not a job interview.” He crosses the room and turns me by the shoulders to face the mirror. “Look. You look like yourself.”

I look at my reflection. Jeans. The soft blue sweater he likes. Hair down.

“I look terrified.”

“You look honest.” He meets my eyes in the mirror. “That’s what she needs from you. Not perfect. Just honest.”

I lean back against him slightly and he wraps his arms around me from behind, and we stand there for a moment looking at the same reflection.