Chapter 17 #2
Kate hadn't come to the match. I hadn't asked her to. When I turned my phone on after showering, I found a text waiting.
Kate: Finish your job. We’ll talk at your place.
I read the message twice before typing back.
Cole: Leaving in twenty. Back door sticks if you get there first.
Kate: Noted. That sounds like a metaphor, which I will respectfully ignore.
The truck smelled of athletic tape, damp leather, and the fries Reyes had spilled across the passenger seat the week before.
I drove out toward Seward Park with the window cracked half an inch to keep from drifting off.
The rain had stopped. Through a break in the cloud cover, a pale sliver of light stretched across Lake Washington.
Kate pulled up ten minutes later. She’d traded her sleep shirt for dark jeans, flats, and a structured blazer nobody needed on a Saturday afternoon. She stepped out of her rideshare with her phone in one hand and a slim manila folder in the other.
“Dressed down, I see,” I said.
She glanced at the lapels of her blazer.
“Don't judge. You have ice strapped to your body with an elastic bandage.”
“High-performance fashion.”
Kate walked up the gravel path. Her eyes dropped to the ice pack over my shoulder.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to need an evaluation tomorrow. Not bad enough to lie and say it’s fine.”
The corner of her mouth shifted. It wasn't a full smile, but it didn't need to be.
“Aggressive progress,” she said.
We went in through the back door. It caught on the frame, exactly as advertised, and Kate had to lean her shoulder into it while I wrenched the handle up.
In the kitchen, Gene’s burlap sack of potting soil still leaned against the baseboard.
Both of us looked at the island—at the spot where our plates had been, the face-down screens, the half-sentences left hanging between us.
“Outside,” Kate said.
I didn't argue.
The dock was damp, the cedar planks groaning under my weight.
We walked out to the bench at the far end.
Kate ran her palm over the wood to make sure it wasn't soaked before sitting down.
I lowered myself beside her with considerably less grace than I would have liked.
The lake smelled of freshwater weeds and wet cedar.
From the far shore, the low rumble of a powerboat drifted across the water.
Kate set the folder on the wood between us.
“These are the draft terms,” she said. “You can read them if you want. Not so you can give me permission.”
“I want to read them.”
She handed the sheets over. Nine months. Potential five-month extension. Temporary base in New York. Hiring authority and a budget of my own. The kind of opportunity that didn't come around twice just because a new relationship had terrible timing.
“This is huge,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“And it sounds like you.”
Kate looked out over the water.
“That part scares me too.”
I handed the folder back. Then I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the document Rick had forwarded. Kate scanned the figures without changing expression, but her eyes locked on the club option before rereading the medical clause.
“This lets them walk away after year two if your shoulder gets worse,” she said.
“Or if they find some twenty-four-year-old who heals like grass.”
“Reyes is going to need to start sleeping with one eye open.”
“He can't. He shows up to practice in mismatched shoes.”
The joke settled between us, and for a few seconds, the only sound was the lake lapping against the wooden pilings.
Kate handed my phone back.
“I don't want to find out from someone else about something that could change where you live,” she said. “Even if it’s still just a possibility.”
“Neither do I.”
“And I don't want ‘telling you’ to mean I have to reassure you, give you an answer, or rearrange my life in the same breath.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Got ahead of myself.”
Kate rotated the folder ninety degrees, squaring it against the edge of the bench. This time, she didn't pull her hand away.
“I also don't need a play-by-play of every single call from your agent. You’re entitled to process before you speak. That’s privacy. But the moment you take a step that turns an option into a reality, it stops affecting only you.”
“Accepting a meeting.”
“Making a shortlist. Receiving terms. Anything that forces us to alter dates, cities, or plans if it reaches the next stage.”
“We tell each other first.”
Kate knit her brows.
“Before a reporter posts it or half the twenty-second floor finds out, yes. But I’m not trying to compete with Rick or Diane for first place.”
“It’s not a ranking. Rick’s going to know things earlier because that’s his job.”
“I know that. What I mean is that I don't want the rest of the world living inside a possibility while I’m standing right beside you with no idea it exists.”
The words hit dead center beneath my taped ribs. That was exactly what I’d done. I’d given a front office, an agent, and anyone with a press pass the chance to picture my future before giving it to Kate.
“Understood,” I said.
“If we can't get into the weeds right then, we name that it exists and agree on when to pick it up. We don't use ‘nothing’s locked down’ as a sedative.”
The boat engine faded toward the north. I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees. The ice pack slipped. Kate caught it before it could hit the wet dock, holding it steady until I had the elastic strap secured under my own power.
“Those are all rules,” I said. “Good ones. But that’s not why we kept quiet.”
Kate rested her hand on the wood, inches from mine.
“No.”
“I thought if I laid out a reality where I might leave, you’d walk out first. Not because you ever said you would. Because I know that shutting the door before someone else can walk away makes you feel less cornered.”
Kate didn't take her eyes off the water.
“And I thought you’d turn New York into a logistical puzzle. Flights, weekends, calendars. That you’d make it look doable before asking if I even wanted it.”
“I probably would've started with the flight schedules.”
“I know.”
“But I would've asked.”
It took her a long beat to nod.
“I know that too. Which is why I didn't tell you. I didn't trust myself to hear you without turning every solution you offered into pressure. It was easier to decide on my own how much space this was allowed to take up between us.”
I shifted my hand across the bench until my pinkie brushed hers. Kate didn't close the distance, but she didn't pull away.
“I don't want you protecting me from having an opinion,” I said.
“And I don't want you protecting me from worrying.”
“That’s going to be harder.”
“I didn't say the pact was supposed to be comfortable.”
“It’s a pact now?”
Kate looked down at our hands.
“‘Procedure for Geographic Threat Disclosure’ felt a little clunky for casual conversation.”
I laughed, and the jolt pulled hard at my ribs. I winced. Kate waited until my breath leveled out without asking three times if I was in pain.
“The pact, then,” I said. “Anything that could alter our lives gets put on the table before we take another step. Saying it out loud doesn't require permission or an immediate fix. We can ask for time, but we don't pretend it doesn't exist.”
“And we don't decide for the other person what they’re capable of handling.”
“That too.”
Kate turned her hand over and laced her fingers through mine.
“It doesn't solve the two cities.”
“No.”
“We might end up with two offers that can't fit into the same life.”
The fear surfaced uninvited: a dry hollow behind my breastbone, Kate’s hand warm inside mine, and no useful promise to soften it. I let it sit between us.
“Then we look at both before we choose,” I said.
Kate squeezed my fingers.
We headed back inside to the kitchen as the evening chill settled over the lake. She pulled up Diane’s email; I opened the thread with Rick. Neither of us hovered over the other’s screen or asked for sign-off.
Kate typed that she wanted to receive the full offer.
I confirmed that Monday’s call was on and requested the full draft terms in writing.
We angled our phones toward each other to show the sent drafts. Then we both tapped send.
Both phones sat face up on the kitchen island.