"No," I said.
"I don't want you to stop."
"Okay."
Simple. Like that single word settled the entire matter. Like he'd been waiting patiently for exactly that answer, and now that he finally had it, everything after this was just a matter of execution, of logistics, nothing left to debate.
"Okay," he said again, quieter this time.
"Then I want you to have dinner with me. Not at the restaurant, not somewhere with an easy exit if things get too honest for either of us. I want you to come here. To my place. And I want us to actually talk about what this is and where it's headed. Not around it, the way we've been doing for weeks now. Through it."
My heart was doing something loud and thoroughly unhelpful in my chest.
"Jude…"
"I know exactly what I'm asking," he said, cutting in before
