Eve’s stomach tightened, because she’d noticed it all morning.
The clipped phone calls.
The pauses where Ryan stared at nothing with a cold focus.
The way his jaw tightened at certain notifications.
Eve had asked once and he’d said, Later.
It hadn’t felt like dismissal.
It had felt like containment.
Camila leaned closer, voice low so the men wouldn’t hear clearly. “He’s carrying something.”
Eve’s eyes stayed on the windshield ahead. “I know.”
Camila squeezed her hand. “And you’re carrying everything.”
Eve swallowed hard. “I don’t know how not to.”
Camila exhaled. “You learn. Slowly. Like everything else.”
The ride stayed quiet after that, not awkward, but tender in the way that happens when everyone knows the same fear but nobody wants to speak it into existence.
Ryan drove sm
