Page 49 of The Grumpy Defenseman
I had a dozen acceptable answers. Better. Working. Nothing useful.
“I’m working on it,” I said.
The most honest thing I hadsaid in days.
Then I made myself add the part that mattered.
“You don’t have to ask me that.”
Her gaze held mine.
“I know.”
The words sat between us. Small. Careful. Not forgiveness. Not repair. But not nothing.
“I don’t want to make this about my guilt,” I said.
Her expression shifted, barely. Interest, maybe. Or caution.
“Good,” she said.
The corner of my mouth moved. She had earned that much.
“I owe you more than this,” I said. “I know that.”
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
The truth held steady between us. No cruelty. No softness.
My chest tightened, but I did not look away.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said.
Not warm. Not cold. Careful in a way that cost her something to offer.
“Yeah,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
She adjusted the strap on her camera bag again, a practical gesture from a woman preparing to walk away, and moved past me toward the exit.
Close.
Close enough that the air between us carried her shampoo, something citrus and clean, and the warmth of her shoulder registered against the cold of the corridor.
I did not turn around until I heard the lobby door open and close.
Then I stood in the empty hallway, alone with the hum of the building and the weight of everything that had been said and everything that had not, and felt the next breath come easier than the last.
Not fixed.
Still breathing. Still in the same building. Willing to say tomorrow like it meant something.
I picked up my bag and walked toward the exit. The parking lot was dark. The sky was doing that San Antoniothing where it could not decide between stars and clouds and offered both.
My truck sat where I had left it, uncomplicated, the one object in my life that never required an emotional response.
I got in and sat there.
My phone was in the cupholder. Her name was in it.
