Page 58 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“I don’t know. There’s the trade and Silas’s concerns. There’s the reporter. There’s the fact that he still owes me more than a hallway conversation.”
“Correct.” Bella pointed at me. “Do not do his work for him. I cannot emphasize this enough. If he wants access to you, he can bring the truth with both hands and no defensive nonsense.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“I know men. I know avoidance. I know you. The Venn diagram is irritating.”
I stared at her. She stared back. Neither of us blinked, because blinking was a concession in whatever this was.
“My problem,” I said slowly, “is that I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of being the one who moves first. Of putting myself out there with someone who might leave.” I swallowed. “Of trusting someone and having it cost me.”
Bella was quiet for a moment. The family noise filled the space betweenus: a child yelling goal, Mack objecting on procedural grounds, Mamá laughing from somewhere inside the house.
“I’m going to say something,” Bella said, “and you’re going to listen without deflecting, because I know you and deflecting is your superpower and I’m not allowing it right now.”
This is going to hurt.
“I noticed you the second you walked into my office,” Bella said. “You were not loud or trying. You moved like someone who knew exactly who she was. That’s rare, Sam. People feel it. I felt it. And I would bet everything I own that he felt it too.”
My throat tightened.
“I don’t feel fearless,” I murmured.
“Of course you don’t. Fearless people never do. They just keep moving.” She leaned forward.
The porch went quiet around us, or maybe I stopped hearing everything else. Just Bella’s voice and the truth sittingbetween us like something that had been waiting to be said.
“One of you has to stop pretending this doesn’t matter,” Bella said. “That can be you. But do not confuse moving with fixing. You can move toward what you want without carrying what he owes you.”
I sat there, hands folded in my lap, feeling the heat from the coffee cup near my knee. The yard breathed around us. A dog barked. Mack lost another argument to a child and accepted defeat with suspicious dignity.
And somewhere inside me, a piece that had been out of alignment since Case Whitfield published my photographs under his name clicked into place. Not dramatically. Just a quiet internal sound, like a lens finding focus after a long time shooting blind.
“You’re right,” I said.
“I know.”
“No, I mean…” I looked through the porch railing at the yard. “You’re right about all of it. About him and about me. I’ve been waiting for him to be ready, but I’ve been hiding behind that too.”
Bella’s eyes softened. Not much, because Bella’s eyes did not do soft easily, but enough.
“There she is,” she murmured.
There she is. Still Sam.
The same words from the bar. Different now. Deeper. Recognition of readiness.
“Well,” I said, reaching for my coffee. “That’s settled then.”
“Oh?” Bella arched a brow. “What’s settled?”
“I’m done hesitating.”
“Now that,” Bella said, “is the kind of decisive energy I like to see.”
