Theo showed up at my door on a Thursday with takeout and no agenda, which had become, over the past month, its own quiet kind of ritual — no grand gestures, no performance of romance, just a man who kept choosing to be there without asking anything of me in return.
“You’re doing the thing again,” he said, setting the containers on my counter, watching me with the particular gentle attention he’d perfected. “Going quiet mid-sentence like you’re listening for something behind you.”
“Diane called this morning.” I hadn’t meant to lead with it, hadn’t meant to let the conversation go there before we’d even sat down to eat, but it came out anyway, some old habit of managing bad news alone finally cracking. “Adrian’s attorneys filed an appeal. Procedural grounds, mostly — she doesn’t think it h
