Briar POV
I had rehearsed what I was going to say to Adrian at least a dozen times on the drive home.
Not about Maya, not directly, but a version of events that was technically accurate enough to hold up if questioned and strategically incomplete enough to protect me. I was going to tell him that I had gone for a drive to clear my head, that I had ended up near the financial district, that I had run into Maya by coincidence. That we had exchanged words briefly. That I had been emotional, understandably so given everything, and that it had been a difficult conversation but a short one.
All of that was true. Technically.
I had gone over it enough times that by the time I walked through the front door it felt solid and reasonable and entirely presentable.
Adrian was in the living room.
