Gage
I knew I should’ve been paying attention. Derek probably assumed I was right there with him—locked in, tracking every word he said, more than ready to jump in if he left something out. Like I was supposed to be some second-in-command, the golden boy who could just pick up the slack whenever it appeared. He trusted me like that.
But I couldn’t help myself.
My eyes kept drifting—drawn back to her like a goddamn magnet. There she was, front and center. Bree. Elbows on the table, notebook open, pen moving across the page like she was transcribing the Bible. Every time Derek spoke, she wrote. Every word, every tip, every little detail he threw out there—she captured it. She wasn’t just learning; she was rewriting it in her own way, making it stick, turning knowledge into something livin
