Page 15

"She was crying."

"Sitting on the tailgate of a supply truck. Drinking coffee." Jake's voice is careful. Measured. "Rivera said she was holding one of those to go cups with a sticky note on it."

The coffee I left her. She was crying over the coffee I left her. Something in my rib cage cracks open, and the feeling that pours through it is so far from professional that I have to sit down on a hay bale to breathe.

"Jake."

"Here's what I'm going to say, and then I'm going to hang up and let you figure it out." His voice drops the boss tone. Goes quiet, personal. The voice of a man who married his wife after a road trip that started as a favor for a friend. "I spent years hiding behind my job because my job was the only thing that couldn't leave me. And then Trish showed up, and I had to decide whether I was going to be a man with a perfect security record and an empty bed, or a man who took a risk and built a life."

"You're not exactly subtle with the parallels."

"I'm not trying to be subtle. I'm trying to keep you from making my mistake in slow motion." He exhales. "Talk to Noah. Before you talk to her. That's my advice."

He hangs up.

Talk to Noah. About the fact that I slept with his event coordinator. The woman he's building his annual programming around. The professional he just offered a twelve month contract.

I know about the contract. Talia mentioned it to Rivera, who mentioned it to me, because apparently the Club Crimson communication style is just organized gossip with better vocabulary. So I know the stakes. I know what Sloane is risking, what she's gaining, what she's terrified of losing.

I also know what I saw in her eyes at that bonfire. The woman who told me about Marcus, about her mother, about the baby shower she planned at sixteen because she's been proving herself since before she could drive. That woman doesn't cry over cold coffee. She cries over a man who remembered.

The sun clears the eastern ridge. Morning light floods the valley, turning the October trees to fire. Today is the last day. Closing ceremony at noon. Teardown starts at two. By tonight, the Autumn Harvest is over, the string lights come down, the hay bales go back to storage. Sloane drives to Vancouver.

And I go back to being the man with the clean record and the empty cabin.

Unless I do the thing I've never done. The thing my father never did. The thing my abuela told me, once, sitting by that fire pit in Tucson with a glass of horchata in her hand: Mijo, the bravest thing a man can do is stay.

I find Noah in his office at the lodge. Door open. He's reviewing something on his laptop, Talia's voice coming through a phone on speaker. They're talking about the spring retreat budget.

"Noah. Got a minute?"

He looks up. Reads my face. Whatever he sees there makes him tell Talia he'll call her back. The phone goes silent. He closes the laptop.

"Sit."

"I'll stand." Because sitting feels too casual for what I'm about to say. "I need to tell you something, and it's going to affect how you see my professionalism. I'm prepared for whatever that means."

Noah leans back in his chair. Those gray eyes go flat, unreadable. The Club Crimson owner. The man who built an empire on discretion and control.

"Go ahead."

"Sloane Whitfield and I were involved Friday night. Once. She ended it Saturday morning because she understood the professional implications. I'm telling you because I don't want her contract offer compromised by something she didn't initiate."

"She didn't initiate it?"

"I kissed her first. On the path between the bonfire and her cabin. Everything that followed was mutual, but the first move was mine. If someone's accountability is on the table, it's mine."

Silence. Noah's fingers drum once on the desk. He stands. Walks to the window. Looks out at the venue where Sloane's team is already prepping for the closing ceremony.

"Morales, how old are you?"

"Thirty four."

"How long have you been doing security work?"

"Four years with Jake. Two with you."

"In that time, have you ever compromised an event? Missed a threat? Let your attention wander from the job?"