Page 92 of Suite 7

“That takes time.”

“How much?”

“That’s different for everyone. For me, the shame was the last thing to go. Everything else settled first. How I felt in a scene. Whether I trusted myself. What I was actually built for.” A pause. “The shame was the hardest because it was the most familiar. It felt like honesty even when it wasn’t.”

The city moves past.

What I felt watching her walk toward that corridor wasn’t envy. It was closer to recognition. That’s available. That’s what this looks like when it stops apologizing for itself.

“Tonight I just — did it,” I say. “I didn’t plan to. I didn’t decide to be okay with it. I just sat across the table from her and we both held it and it was fine. It was more than fine.” I stop. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You don’t have to do anything with it,” he says. “You just let it be true.”

The simplicity of it lands somewhere I wasn’t braced for.

“Kane.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you’re teaching me.” The honesty of it arrives before I can pull it back. “All of it. Thank you.”

A pause. Then, because I cannot leave it there without covering it with something: “Although I imagine teaching someone who argues about everything, including the correct way to argue, must be a special kind of patience test. You should probably get a certificate. Officially recognized. Framed.”

“Vera.”

Just my name. The way he says it when he’s not fooled.

“There is nothing wrong with you.” Quiet. The kind that doesn’t leave room for negotiation. “Nothing that needs fixing before you’re allowed to be here.”

The tightness behind my sternum does something I don’t examine.

“I like teaching you. You keep me on my toes, Vera.”

“Goodnight, Kane.”

“Goodnight, Vera.”

The call ends.

I sit outside Ember & Oak for another minute. The collar of my coat up against the November air. The engine humming.

You stop thinking of them as two things.

I pull out into the street.

17 Vera

It’s Monday night, almost nine PM.

I’ve been in Kane’s stolen gray henley since I got home, working on spreadsheets for the Alderton Group’s gala.

Messaging strategy, guest list optics, and which journalists need to be standing next to which executives when the right conversations happen. My playlist on shuffle, rain pattering against the windows. My loft is warm and safe around me, plants everywhere, color and chaos in every direction.

My phone rings — not a text, a call — and Gerald’s name fills the screen.

“Hello?”

“Are you home?” His voice is different. Urgent but controlled.