You terrify me,” he said again, a rough echo of his words in the office. “Not because you’re reckless. Because you’re… *right* more often than I’d like.”
The admission knocked some of the heat from my blood.
“So stop trying to put me in a box,” I said softer. “Work *with* me instead of around me.”
His jaw ticked.
“I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted.
“You’re learning,” I said.
He huffed a humorless laugh.
“You keep saying that,” he murmured.
“Because it’s true,” I replied. “Look at us. Fighting instead of you shutting down and me running away. That’s progress.”
He stared at me like I’d spoken a foreign language.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Stay away from the border,” he said, but there was less steel in it, more plea. “At least until we know what they want.”
“They want an o
