We told each other things we’d not said in public—secrets of small shame or childish delight. Conley admitted, very quietly, that sometimes the legal world left him hollow, that the applause of courts did not fill certain nights. Angel confessed she feared losing the ease she’d found here to the old, sharper world she’d left behind. I answered with my own fear: that sometimes the market’s appetite would adapt, grow cleverer, and that one day our defenses might not be enough.
Conley listened like a man cataloguing a map. Then he kissed me—slow, sealing—and whispered, “We adapt faster.” I believed him because it was both a vow and a strategy. We fell asleep with fingers braided and pride folded away into the steady anonymity of we.
The mill mornings are different from city mornings. Mist s
