Page 125 of The Grumpy Defenseman
No camera.
That kept hitting me.
She had chosen to see this with her own eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“No camera.”
She looked ahead. “Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because some things are allowed to happen without proof.”
I did not answer right away.
The river moved beside us, dark and shallow, carrying light in broken pieces.
“I like that,” I said.
“Me too. It is inconveniently healthy.”
We walked until the noise thinned, then came back up near the cathedral. The plaza was lit, people moving through it in loose groups, voices low under the bells and stone. Sam stopped at the edge of the square and looked around.
“This city gets under your skin,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I thought I was passing through.”
Ilooked at her.
She kept her eyes on the cathedral.
“I told myself San Antonio was work. A contract. A season. Something temporary enough to survive.”
“And now?”
She breathed out.
“Now Bella knows my coffee order, Sandra can read my face, and your team keeps making room for me like I am not leaving.”
The words were quiet, but they changed the air around us.
I stepped closer.
“Are you?”
She turned then.
The light touched her face unevenly. One side shadowed. One side warm. She looked like the version of herself I had been trying to learn without taking more than she offered.
“No,” she said.
One word.
No decoration.
