The day after that was quiet.
Genuinely quiet. Not the nervous quiet of the first week when every silence felt like something waiting to become noise. A different kind. The quiet of two people in a house with serious work behind them and a serious meeting ahead of them and one day in between that belonged to neither.
I woke at six again. Made coffee. Sat at the kitchen table.
Cade came down at seven. Poured a cup. Sat across from me.
We did not open notepads. Did not look at maps. Did not talk about Meridian Cross or Vantage Solutions or the meeting tomorrow or any of the things that had been the entire content of every conversation for the past two weeks.
We just sat.
After a while he said, "Tell me something about you that has nothing to do with any of this."
I looked at him. "Wha
