Ethan's POV
By the second week, the house had a temperature to it that had nothing to do with the thermostat.
He sat across from her at dinner on a Tuesday — she hadn't managed to avoid this one, some scheduling collision neither of them could escape — and watched her eat in careful, contained silence, and thought: I am losing this in real time and I don't know which direction to reach.
He tried directness, because directness was his native language, the only tool he'd ever fully trusted. "Whatever your grandmother told you," he said, setting down his fork. "I want to know. I'd rather know than guess. I'm not good at guessing, Mara. I've never had to be."
"It's not about you," she said, which he recognized immediately as a lie wearing the shape of truth — technically defensible, entire
