Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Sam
The click of the laptop closing is quiet, but in the small apartment, it lands like a deadbolt sliding into place.
I set down the pad thai container on the coffee table. The cardboard is warm, but my hands have gone completely ice cold.
RUSH assignment. The words are burned into the back of my eyelids.
"Another job offer?" My voice sounds normal. I don't feel normal.
"Yeah." He looks at the closed laptop, then back at me. "Just a query. Nothing serious."
"How many of those do you get?"
"A few a week." He shrugs, reaching for his water. "It's how freelancing works."
A few a week.
The math hits me like a physical blow. He gets hundreds of these a year.
He could say yes to any of them. He could pack his camera gear, book a one-way flight to somewhere with better light and fewer rules, and just—leave.
Walk away from the Harbor District. From the gallery submission.
From this fragile, unmapped thing happening between us.
From me.
I look away, focusing intensely on the bookshelf behind him so I don't have to look at his face. My chest tightens, the air in the room suddenly feeling far too thin. I start mentally building the walls back up, brick by brick.
The couch cushions shift. Tom stands. I hear the scrape of wood as he grabs the chair from his desk and pulls it directly in front of me. He sits down, leaning forward until his knees are almost touching mine. He completely invades my line of sight, forcing me to look at him.
"Sam."
I stare at a scuff mark on the floorboards.
"Do you need to use your safe word?"
I blink.
The walls I am building stall out halfway up.
I slowly turn my head. "My what?"
He reaches out and takes both of my hands in his.
His hands are so warm.
"Don't tell me you forgot your own rule."
I just stare at him, my brain lagging behind my racing heart.
"You need five minutes?" he prompts gently.
The question finally registers. Five minutes. The rule I made. The boundary we agreed on to keep things from exploding.
I open my mouth, close it, then manage, "Yes."
I immediately shake my head. "No."
I stare at our joined hands, my brain spinning in a dozen different directions at once. "Maybe?"
Tom laughs softly, the sound rumbling in his chest. His thumb brushes the back of my hand, a steady, grounding rhythm. "Okay. Which is it?"
I laugh too, despite the tightness in my chest. "I need two minutes."
He nods and lets go of my hands. "Take your time."
I stand. My legs are unsteady. I pace in front of his bookshelf. The spines are mismatched—photography monographs next to paperback thrillers, a field guide to urban architecture wedged between two Murakami novels.
I walk. Back and forth. Arms crossed.
Tom pushes the chair out of my path without a word and moves back to the couch.
I make three passes. Four. The tightness in my chest eases slightly with each circuit. On the fifth pass, I stop. Turn. Look at him.
He's watching me, elbows on his knees.
I take a breath and walk back to the couch. Sit down facing him, legs tucked under me.
"Okay." My voice is steadier now. "I need to say something."
He waits.
"You get job offers every week. And any one of them could take you somewhere else. You're freelance. You move around. That's how you work." I press my palms against my thighs and take a deep breath.
"I wish I could say when I saw that job offer, my first thought was 'good for him.' But it wasn't. My first thought was 'he's going to leave.'"
Tom's jaw shifts. He leans forward slightly, but he doesn't interrupt.
"I can't stop you from leaving." The words come out flat, factual. "And I don't know what to do with that. When you could just—leave."
"Sam." His voice is quiet, deliberate. "I'm not planning on leaving."
"But you could." I meet his eyes. "You said it yourself. You get offers every week."
"I do. Most weeks more than one."
I let out a short breath. "Not helping, Tom."
He smiles—small, almost apologetic. "And I've turned down every one of them since I started working with you."
What?
That stops me. I uncross my arms, letting my hands drop to my lap.
"How long can you keep doing that? One day, one of them will be too good to turn down."
"Then I take it." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "I go where they send me. And I come back." He tilts his head. "Sam, we both travel for our jobs. When you travel for a project, you can't tell me the Boss Babes chat doesn't blow up when you miss a Monday."
I bite the inside of my cheek. "Well. It depends on where work sends me. If it's someplace nice, the Babes pretend to be angry with me."
"And?"
"And then they want to see pictures when I get back."
I offer a small, tight smile, waiting for him to laugh and let the joke diffuse the tension. The silence settles between us again. Tom doesn't fill it. He just watches me, waiting.
Finally, he speaks. "Sam. What's this really about?"
I stand up and walk to the window instead, looking out at the street below. A cab rolls past. Someone walks a dog. The city moves, indifferent.
"Maybe I needed the full five minutes."
Tom laughs quietly behind me.
I press my fingertips against the glass. It's cool under my skin. "When I was fourteen, my dad left. Just—walked out. Business failed, marriage failed, and he decided the solution was Phoenix. A fresh start. Without us."
I've never said this out loud. Never.
"My mom fell apart. She didn't actually leave, but she disappeared into work and exhaustion. She was there, but she wasn't—present. Even my mom, in a way, left."
I hear the couch shift. Footsteps. Tom doesn't say anything, but I can feel him close now, standing just behind me.
His hands find mine first. Warm palms slide over my knuckles, fingers threading through mine. Then his arms wrap around me from behind, still holding my hands, crossing them over my chest.
He pulls me back flush against his chest, his chin resting near my temple. His chest rises and falls against my spine. I exhale. My shoulders drop. I lean back into him, and let his chest take some of my weight.
His lips press against the side of my head, just behind my temple. The kiss is soft, unhurried. He doesn't speak. Just stays there, breathing with me.
The street below blurs slightly. I blink and it clears.
After a long moment, he speaks.
"I am not your dad."
I turn in his arms—slowly, his grip loosening just enough to let me pivot. When I'm facing him, I look up and say, "I know."
Then I rest my head against his chest.
Tom's arms come around me fully now, one hand flat between my shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of my head. He kisses the top of my head in complete silence.
He’s not saying he'll never leave.
He’s not making guarantees about the future.
He just holds me. I close my eyes and stop bracing for the moment when the person holding me decides I'm too much work.
I let him hold me until my breathing syncs with his.
When I finally pull back, just enough to look up at him, Tom doesn't let go. His hands anchor at my waist.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "For spiraling."
"Don't." His thumb brushes my hip. "You get to feel what you feel."
I nod. Swallow. "The pad thai's cold."
"Probably inedible by now."
"I can reheat mine."
"I'll make popcorn."
The corner of my mouth lifts. "You have popcorn?"
"I have kernels and a pot. Same thing."
I laugh. "That's very on-brand for you."
"Seat of the pants." He says it lightly, but his gaze stays serious. "Sam. I'm not going anywhere."
"I know."
He kisses my forehead. Then he steps back, letting his hands fall away, and moves toward the kitchen.
I stay where I am for a moment, still standing by the window, watching him pull a pot from the cabinet and pour oil into the bottom.
My phone is on the couch. I could check my email. Confirm the site walk time.
I don't.
I walk to the kitchen instead and lean against the counter next to him, close enough that our shoulders brush. After a moment, I rest my hand on his lower back while he shakes the pot.
Tom glances over, eyebrow raised. "You supervising?"
"Making sure you don't burn it."
"I never burn popcorn."
"There's a first time for everything."
He grins, shaking the pot over the burner as the kernels start to pop. The sound fills the small kitchen. It’s oddly comforting.
I watch him work. His hands are steady. His focus is complete, even on something as simple as popcorn.
The popping slows. Tom lifts the pot off the heat and pours the popcorn into a bowl, shaking salt over the top.
"Here." He hands me the bowl. "Quality control."
I take a piece. It's perfectly done—crisp, salty, warm.
"Not bad," I admit.
"Told you."
We move back to the couch. Tom closes out his photography video and queues up something new on his laptop—a documentary about urban renewal projects in Detroit.
Something for me. We sit, shoulders touching, sharing the popcorn, while the documentary plays and the city settles into night outside his window.
At some point, I realize my head is on his shoulder. His arm is around me. My phone is still on the other side of the couch, screen dark.
I don't move.
Tom's hand rests on my shoulder, his thumb tracing small, absent circles against my sleeve.
I close my eyes.
I'm not thinking three steps ahead. I'm not mapping contingencies or building exit strategies.
I'm just here.
And so is he.