Gage #2
But when life got messy, and she needed comfort instead of providing it—he didn’t know how to show up.
Or didn’t want to.
She’d tell me things in pieces—small moments that didn’t sound like much until they stacked up into a pattern.
And every time she did, she’d apologize for it.
Sorry, she’d say, like Jesse was weather and she was the one making it inconvenient. Sorry I keep talking about him. Sorry for dumping this on you.
Then she’d add, half-joking but not really, that she couldn’t tell Rosie any of it—because Rosie would treat “on the fritz” like a five-alarm emergency and start lining up replacement options before Reece could even decide what she wanted.
Reece didn’t want a fix. She wanted quiet. She wanted one safe place to say the truth without it turning into a plan. And somehow, without either of us naming it, I became that place.
Either way, he left her with a bruise she pretends isn’t there.
And it’s not my job to think about that.
So why do I keep thinking about it?
The station parking lot comes into view, crowded with early commuters and slush-lined lanes. I pull into our usual row without needing directions, and Reece starts gathering her tote and coffee like we’re a synchronized routine.
We get out and walk toward the platform together, coats zipped, breath puffing in the cold.
Reece tucks her scarf higher and murmurs, “If you tell me to watch my step, I’ll report you to HR.”
I glance down at the thin patches of ice. Then back at her. “For caring?”
“For hovering,” she corrects.
“I don’t hover.”
She shoots me a look. “You hovered yesterday.”
“I stood,” I say. “Like a person.”
“You stood on the windward side of me like you were shielding the nation.”
“That was strategic.”
“It was dramatic.”
“It was cold.”
She snorts, and the sound is soft—and real.
We reach our usual spot on the platform, the one that lines up with the car we prefer. The crowd shifts around us, commuters staring at phones like it’s a shared ritual.
Reece leans in slightly. “If someone takes our seats today, I will not be responsible for my actions.”
“I’ll restrain you,” I offer.
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s honest.”
Her mouth twitches into a tiny smile she pretends isn’t there.
The train arrives. Doors open. We board.
Seats found.
Reece flips her laptop open the second we’re settled, like the train seat is a desk and the hum of the car is her white noise machine. It’s not even dramatic—just automatic. The way some people buckle their seatbelts without thinking. Reece opens spreadsheets.
The morning ride is usually quiet anyway. Not awkward quiet—comfortable quiet. The kind you earn after years of knowing someone’s moods without needing a report.
I sip my coffee and watch the window for a minute, Manhattan still far off, Long Island sliding by in gray strips of winter. Reece’s screen throws a faint glow across her hands as she types. Her face is calm. Her shoulders are relaxed.
With Reece, calm can be real, or it can be armor. Sometimes it’s both.
My phone buzzes in my coat pocket.
Rosie Palmer: Don’t forget Thursday!
I don’t react. I don’t even look at the message longer than I have to. Rosie doesn’t do “gentle reminders.” Rosie does plans like they’re legally binding agreements, and you’re the one who signed in blood without reading the fine print.
I lock the screen and slide my phone away.
Reece doesn’t look up, but her shoulders shift—just slightly. Like she felt the vibration through the air. Or like she clocked the change anyway. She’s always been good at that.
I should ask her.
It would be normal to ask. We ask each other things. We share an entire driveway worth of routine.
But Thursday isn’t “things.”
Thursday is a trap with good lighting.
If Rosie invited me, there’s a decent chance she invited Reece.
The thought lands in my chest—too quick, too sharp—and I immediately try to file it under none of my business.
Reece can do whatever she wants on Thursday.
Reece can meet someone.
Reece should meet someone.
I just… don’t love the idea of her walking into a room full of strangers who think confidence is the same thing as character. Of her smiling politely while someone talks over her. Of her laughing at jokes that aren’t funny because she’s practiced at making things easy for other people.
I glance at her again.
She’s still typing. Still composed. Still pretending she isn’t a person with bruises.
Two months isn’t a long time. It’s long enough to function. Not long enough to forget.
I clear my throat, aiming for casual. “What’s your week look like?”
Her fingers pause for half a beat, then keep moving. “It’s Tuesday, Gage. My week looks like survival.”
I exhale a quiet laugh.
“Today will be fine,” she says. “Wednesday will be straightforward. Thursday—” She stops herself mid-sentence, like she almost walked into something sharp. “Thursday is… Thursday.”
There it is.
Just a little stumble. A little verbal sidestep.
My pulse gives a stupid, traitorous jump. I keep my tone even. “Big plans?”
“Define big,” she says, still not looking up.
I could push. I could say Rosie. I could say Thursday. I could say I got the text—what is she up to?
But I can already see how that would go: her walls would slide up, clean and quick. She’d make a joke. She’d change the subject. She’d decide I’m paying too much attention.
And if she is going—if she’s trying, in her own careful, controlled way, to move on—the last thing I want is to make her feel watched.
So I shrug like I’m not calculating every word. “Just asking. You’ve been… busy.”
That finally earns me a glance. Her eyes are sharp, but not unkind. “I’m always busy. I’m an accountant approaching tax season.”
“I know,” I say, and I mean more than her calendar.
She studies me for a second like she’s deciding whether I’m safe today. Then she goes back to her screen. “What about you? Any big plans this week, Mr. CEO?”
I could say Thursday Rosie is trying to ruin my peace.
Instead, I go with the truth that won’t get me in trouble. “Work.”
Reece huffs softly. “Thrilling.”
“Predictable,” I correct.
She shakes her head, typing again, the corner of her mouth tugging like she’s trying not to smile.
The conversation drifts back into quiet, because the quiet is easier than the question I don’t want to ask.
I watch her type—the familiar set of her shoulders, the concentration line between her brows—and my brain does what it’s been doing too much lately: it catalogs her.
Soft neutral nails. Cheeks pink from the cold. That small bounce of her knee when she’s thinking.
I shouldn’t be paying attention to her like this.
I do it anyway.
After Jesse, my brain has been treating Reece like something precious and breakable, even though she’s the strongest person I know. I tell myself that’s just loyalty. Friendship. Twenty-something years of next-door habit.
But if that were true, I wouldn’t be doing mental math about what she needs in a man.
Someone steady. Someone who doesn’t flinch when she gets quiet. Someone who doesn’t make her prove she deserves space.
Someone who sees her softness and treats it like something sacred, not inconvenient.
Someone who—
I cut the thought off and take a sip of coffee I don’t taste.
What am I doing?
Why am I thinking about this like it’s my job?
Like I’m… applying?
The train hums beneath us, Tuesday morning rolling forward like it always does—predictable, relentless, familiar. Outside the window, Long Island slides by in gray winter strips, and inside the car, it’s warm enough to pretend we aren’t all strangers packed together in polite misery.
The whole way into the city, Thursday sits in the back of my mind like an unopened email—bolded, flagged, and impossible to ignore.
We step off the train and into the city’s sharp cold. We walk toward our building together, the morning crowd pressing around us.
The building rises ahead—glass and steel and the weight of responsibility.
Reece’s pace doesn’t change. Mine doesn’t either.
Inside, she flips into professional mode without losing herself. She doesn’t shrink. She doesn’t soften. She becomes Reece Callahan, the woman who makes chaos behave.
I watch her do it and feel something tight in my chest.
Pride, maybe.
Or something worse.
By late afternoon, my day has been a series of decisions, meetings, and reminders.
The problem is that my brain keeps circling back to Rosie’s text.
To the way she said, ‘Wear something that doesn’t scream board meeting.’
And the fact that I found myself wondering what Reece would think if I showed up in something else.
Ridiculous.
I’m gathering my coat when Reece walks out of her office area with her tote bag, hair slightly looser than this morning, eyes tired in a way she tries to hide.
She pauses when she sees me.
“You leaving?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “You ready?”
She hesitates.
It’s small. Barely there. But I notice it, because I notice everything about her.
“I’m… not taking the train home with you,” she says, casual like it’s nothing. “I’m staying in the city tonight.”
My spine goes a fraction straighter.
“Okay,” I say evenly. “Plans?”
Her mouth tugs into a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Just… dinner. Girl stuff.”
“With who?” The question slips out before I can stop it. Too quick. Too interested.
Reece’s eyebrows lift like she heard the edge beneath it. “Gage,” she says lightly, “are you interviewing my social calendar?”
“No,” I answer immediately. I clear my throat, forcing it back into something I can defend. “I’m your employer. It’s practically a moral obligation to make sure my people get home safe.”
Her eyes narrow, amused. “Your people.”
I keep my face neutral. “And I’m your friend. That obligation predates payroll.”
She holds my gaze for a beat, like she’s deciding whether to tease me or let me have the win. Then she shrugs, softer. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Text me when you’re on your way home,” I say, like it’s nothing. It’s what we’ve done since middle school—me making sure she made it home safe, her answering the same way every time.
She rolls her eyes like she’s annoyed, but she nods once. “Always.”
Then she turns and heads toward the elevator bank, disappearing into the crowd of people leaving for the day.
I stand there with my coat in my hand and the strange sensation that something has shifted.
Not because she’s staying in the city.
People stay in the city all the time.
It’s the fact that she didn’t tell me more. That she didn’t automatically include me in the routine. That she walked away and left a gap where she usually exists.
I tell myself it shouldn’t matter.
And then I realize my brain is already counting the hours until I see her again.
Which is a problem.
Because Thursday is coming—
and Rosie sets traps.