Page 23 of The Grumpy Defenseman

I brought her a mug. She sat up, hair defying several laws of physics, and took a sip with the dignified expression of a woman who had woken up on a friend’s couch and refused to be embarrassed about it.

“So,” she said. “Have you spiraled yet?”

“I don’t spiral.”

“You’re spiraling right now. I can see it happening behind your eyes. It’s like watching someone do long division in real time.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About him.”

“About work.”

“Liar.” She pointed at me with the mug. “You’re thinking about what it means. You’re thinking about whether he’s thinking about it. And you’re constructing an elaborate emotional argument for why the smart move is to pretend it never happened.”

I hate how well she knows me.

“Am I wrong?” Bella asked.

“No.”

“Then stop doing the math and let yourself feel it.” She set the mug down and stood, stretching like she owned my condo. “You spent three years protecting yourself from Case Whitfield. That was necessary. But this isn’t Case. This is a man who showed up to a rooftop bar because you asked him to, and then kissed you like he had been thinking about it for weeks.”

Case Whitfield.

My body heard the name before my brain caught up. A hand on the back of my neck. The weight of a boulder pressed against my sternum. His voice close enough to count as breath.

You see the way no one else does, Sam. That’s why I needed those frames.

Two seconds. Then the kitchen was back. My coffee. My best friend in yesterday’s mascara.

“You don’t know that’s what…”

“Four seconds, Sam. Hand on your face. Bourbon on his breath. That man has been thinking about kissing you since the first time you pointed a camera at him.”

I stared at her. She stared back. Neither of us blinked.

And underneath all of it was the part I had not said out loud: wanting Evan was not abstract. It came with buses and bruises, trade rumors and Sandra’s clipboards, and a room full of men who would clock a change in his breathing before I finished denying it.

“I need to go to work,” I said.

“Yes, you do.” She grabbed her shoes and headed for the door, pausing at the threshold. “And when you see him, don’t you dare do that thing where you act so normal everyone within ten feet knows you’re lying.”

“I don’t do that.”

Bella slid her feet into her heels and shot me a look over her shoulder.

“Sam. You once told a barista you were ‘perfectly fine’ in the same voice people use to identify a body. That latte was complicated, and so are you.”

She paused before opening the door, as if the idea just struck her, though it had not.

“Also, Sunday at Mamá’s. My sisters, even Mack, the whole crew. She’s been asking about you, and I have no excuses left. She’ll be expecting real bakery bread.”

“Bella…”

“Not optional. And don’t bring sad grocery-store bread. Bring crusty bread that looks like it has survived something.”

“This feels aggressive for breakfast.”