Chapter 16 #2
I drop the form in Kennedy's inbox, leave a copy with Hudson's admin, and file the original in my monitoring records.
Nobody calls me back about it.
By Thursday evening, the clinical concern is four days old and no one has responded. I check Kennedy's inbox on my way out—the form is gone, nothing in its place.
I need to be somewhere else tonight.
Gage picked a diner forty minutes outside the city. Far enough that we won't run into anyone from the facility, close enough that the drive isn't awkward. When he gave me the address, he said, "No uniforms, no badges. Just dinner."
Just dinner, as if dinner with Gage outside the facility could ever be just anything.
I spent an hour getting ready, which is forty-five minutes longer than I've spent on my appearance in months. The mirror shows someone I barely recognize—hair down in loose waves that took three passes with the curling iron, full face of makeup that Mishel helped me perfect over a video call.
"Holy shit," she said when I showed her the finished product. "Who are you trying to impress?"
"Myself."
"Liar. Send pictures."
The dress is simple—black, fitted, nothing dramatic. But with the waves and the makeup and the heels I dug out of the back of my closet, the overall effect is different. This isn't facility-Hope or gym-Hope or weekend-on-the-couch-Hope.
This is someone else entirely.
The diner is chrome and red vinyl, a throwback place with a neon sign that probably hasn't been updated since the seventies. The parking lot is half-full when I pull in, mostly pickup trucks and older sedans.
I spot Gage's truck right away. He's standing by the hood, jacket off, watching the road. Waiting for me.
He doesn't move when my car pulls up beside him. Just watches me park.
I get out of the car and his whole body goes still. His arms drop to his sides. He starts to say something, stops, tries again.
"Fuck, Hope."
"Too much?"
"No." The word comes out rough. "Not even close. You're stunning."
We stand there for a moment—him taking me in outside a uniform for the first time, me feeling powerful in a way I never do at the facility. Whatever started between us in a facility corridor has room to breathe out here.
"You hungry?" he manages.
"Starving."
The inside of the diner matches the outside—red booths, checkerboard floor, a counter lined with stools and coffee carafes. A waitress who's seen everything barely blinks at us, just points to an empty booth and says she'll be by in a minute.
Gage sits across from me. The booth is small enough that our knees almost touch under the table.
"I've been coming here since I got back from my last deployment," he says, answering a question I didn't ask. "The food's nothing special but the coffee's good and they don't ask questions."
"Questions about what?"
"Anything." He shrugs. "I was kind of a mess for a while. Coming home, my divorce, the transition. This place was open twenty-four hours and they'd let me sit in a corner booth at 3 a.m. and drink coffee until I could sleep."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was." He meets my eyes. "But it's better now."
The waitress comes by. Gage orders the meatloaf without looking at the menu. I do the same because I don't care what I eat, only that I'm eating it across from him.
When she leaves, Gage's sleeves are pushed to his elbows. The tattoo on his forearm—the one he pulled his cuff over in the stairwell weeks ago—is out in the open for once.
"It was for my mom," he says when he catches me looking. "Got it at eighteen, before my first deployment. She cried when I enlisted. Wanted to carry something of her with me."
"That's sweet."
"Seemed important at the time." He rubs his thumb over the rose without seeming to notice. "Lot of things seemed important at eighteen that don't make sense now. But that one stuck."
"Did she ever see it?"
"Yeah." A small smile. "Cried again. Happy tears, though. Said at least part of me stayed soft."
"Did you? Stay soft?"
He's quiet for a long moment. The restaurant noise fills the silence—a clink of dishes, murmur of conversation, someone laughing at the counter.
"I thought I'd lost it," he says. "After everything. The military. The divorce. Watching... what I've watched. Thought whatever soft parts I had got burned out somewhere along the way." His eyes find mine. "Then you showed up."
The coffee arrives. Gage has a system—he adds cream first, then sugar, then stirs counterclockwise with the spoon before setting it on the saucer.
"You came back," I say. "From all of it."
"Yeah." He turns his coffee cup on the saucer. "Some days I'm not sure I brought all the pieces with me."
"Whatever came back is enough."
He looks up at me and I see it in his face, the same thing I feel in mine—we're both people who've been changed by things we can't undo.
The meatloaf is unremarkable but the company is perfect. We talk about nothing important—his brother's new baby, my gym schedule, the podcast about missing persons cases that I've been binging. Normal, easy things.
When the check comes, he pays before I can reach for my wallet.
"Next one's on me," I say.
"Next one?"
"If you want."
His answer is to take my hand as we walk to the parking lot.
Outside, the parking lot is quiet under the neon sign. We stop between our cars, neither of us moving toward our doors.
"Hope." His voice is lower now, rougher. "I'm not good at this. The words, the—whatever this is supposed to be. I don't know how to do it right."
"You're doing fine, Gage."
"I don't know what's going on between you and Chadwick. I'm not asking." He shifts his weight. "But I'm standing here scared shitless that I just had one of the best night I’ve had in ages and you're going to drive home and forget about it."
I should tell him it's not that simple. That I don't know what I'm doing either.
Instead I reach for the front of his jacket and pull him down to me.
His mouth finds mine before either of us decides who kissed who.
His hand comes up to the side of my neck, rough and warm, he tastes like coffee and his beard scrapes against my chin.
My knees go soft and I grab his jacket tighter because the alternative is falling down in a parking lot.
His other hand grips my hip and pulls me flush against him for one breath, two, and then he tears himself back.
We stare at each other. His hand is still on my neck, thumb pressed to my pulse, and we're both breathing hard.
"Shit," he says.
"Yeah."
He drops his hand. Steps back. Runs his palm over his jaw.
"Think about it, Hope."
He gets in his truck and pulls away, and I stand in the parking lot with my fingers pressed to my mouth, still tasting coffee, still feeling his hand on my neck, still not sure I can drive.
I'm still thinking about it the next morning when I walk into Greenridge for Friday's session, and I'm still thinking about it when the session runs long.
Kent is there when I arrive, unexpected, reviewing documents with Jude in the supervised meeting area. I catch the tail end of their conversation—something about filing deadlines and procedural windows—before they both look up.
For a moment, all three of us exist in the same frame: Jude at the table, Kent standing beside him, me in the doorway.
"Ms. Turner." Kent's voice is neutral. "I didn't realize you were scheduled."
"Weekly check-in. It's on the calendar."
"Of course." He straightens, gathering his papers. "I was just leaving."
But he doesn't leave. He stands there, papers in hand, looking at me with an expression I can't read. Want, maybe. Or frustration.
"Fridays used to be the worst part of my—" He stops. Shakes his head. "Never mind. Irrelevant."
"Kent."
He's already moving toward the door. "I'll let you work."
I sit down across from Jude, pull out my notebook, and try to settle in.
"Does it bother you?" I say.
"Does what bother me?"
"People watching. People figuring it out."
He considers the question with genuine thought.
"No," he says. "They can watch all they want. It doesn't change anything."
"What doesn't it change?"
His eyes meet mine, green and clear and certain.
"That you're mine. That I'm going to get out of here. That when I do, I'm not letting you go."
Those words land in my chest and stay there. Heavy and warm and I don't want them gone.