The thing about carrying a secret for eight months is that by the time you finally set it down, you have forgotten how heavy it was.
Ethan noticed something was different the same way he noticed most things about me, quietly and without announcing it, storing the observation somewhere patient and waiting until the right moment to say anything. He had always been like that. He did not push at things. He waited for them to come to him, and they always did eventually, because that was the nature of things around Ethan Vale. They settled toward him the way objects settle toward solid ground.
It was a Thursday evening, two days after the board had gone into emergency session, two days after the largest single acquisition had cleared through Crest Lane without a sound. Noah was at Sophia’s for
