He was in the kitchen when I got home.
Not cooking. Just standing at the counter with a glass of water, not drinking it, looking out the window at the city the way people looked at things they weren't seeing. The mate bond had the quality it sometimes had in the hours after a difficult exchange — not strained, just very present. Like it was paying attention.
I dropped my bag. Didn't sit down yet.
He turned.
"I've been thinking about it all afternoon," he said, before I could say anything. "The mechanism. What I told you in the corridor — about calculating your reaction before telling you things. I've been tracing it back."
Something in me went quiet. This was not the conversation I had prepared for. I'd been ready for careful, managed accountability. Not this.
I sat at the table.
He
