The morning after felt like walking on a wire while dressed in silk. The three of us had stitched together a private truce that the world wouldn’t understand — a tangle of hands, breaths, and claims — and for a brief, electric night the house felt repaired. But daylight has a way of insisting on clarity, and clarity demands choices.
Conley left before breakfast, a man already wrapped in the week’s schedule. He kissed me quickly at the door, then Angel, both gestures private and public at once. The small choreography made my stomach tighten — a reminder that in his world even tenderness had to be rationed and timed. I watched his back until the elevator swallowed him, then turned to the kitchen where the quiet hum of staff and the rustle of newspaper headlines began to filter normalcy back
