Taylor began to notice the way Adam’s tone settled her. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t erase everything else, but it shifted things just enough that the constant tension she carried eased only slightly.
His words didn’t demand anything. They didn’t press. They didn’t change. That consistency mattered more than she wanted to admit. Everything else in her life—before and even now—had always been unpredictable.
Andrew had been unpredictable. His moods. His reactions. The way a normal moment could turn into something else without warning.
Taylor had spent years adjusting to that. She anticipated it, braced for it. With Adam, there was none of that. There were no sudden changes, no thorn behind the flower. Just steady.
Her mind began to settle into that steadiness without asking permission f
