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  The Space Between

  Friday, November 25th - Saturday, December 3rd

  The day after Thanksgiving, I woke up smiling.

  This was notable because I couldn't remember the last time I'd woken up smiling. Usually I woke up with a vague sense of dread, a mental checklist of everything that could go wrong, and the desperate need for coffee. But that Friday morning, I lay in bed staring at my ice-blue ceiling and just... smiled.

  Scott had texted me at 7 AM.

  Scott: Hope you got home okay. Eduardo says he already misses you.

  Me: Tell Eduardo I miss him too. Thank you again for yesterday.

  Scott: Best Thanksgiving I've had in years. Chinese food and good company beats turkey and awkward family silence any day.

  Me: Even better than Ohio?

  Scott: Especially better than Ohio. My uncle Jerry has very strong opinions about football that he shares at high volume. You're much better company.

  I hugged my phone to my chest like a teenager, which was embarrassing and also kind of wonderful. When was the last time I'd felt like this? Giddy. Hopeful. Like maybe the universe wasn't entirely out to get me.

  The apartment was quiet around me. My beautiful, expensive, completely redecorated apartment that I'd paid for with money I'd conjured from nowhere. The reminder should have dampened my mood, but somehow it didn't. For the first time in weeks, the guilt felt manageable. Distant.

  I had someone who wanted to spend holidays with me. Someone who looked at me like I was worth looking at. Someone who read fantasy novels just to have something to talk about.

  Maybe that was enough.

  * * *

  We fell into a rhythm after that. Coffee dates became dinner dates became movie nights became long walks through the city as the weather turned cold. Scott had a talent for finding hidden gems. A hole-in-the-wall Thai place that was actually good, a bookstore that specialized in rare first editions, a park bench with a perfect view of the sunset over the river.

  "How do you know all these places?" I asked one evening, as we sat on that bench watching the sky turn orange and pink.

  "I explore," he said. "When I first moved here for work, I didn't know anyone. So I just... walked. Found things. It's amazing what you discover when you're not in a rush to get somewhere."

  "When did you move here?"

  "About two months ago." He took a sip of the hot chocolate we'd gotten from a cart nearby. "The assignment was supposed to be temporary, but it keeps getting extended."

  "Do you miss Ohio?"

  "Sometimes. I miss my mom. She makes this terrible fruitcake every Christmas that somehow I actually like. And there's this coffee shop near my old apartment that does the best cinnamon rolls." He shrugged. "But I don't miss the winters. Or the lack of good Thai food. Or the general sense that nothing ever changes."

  "Things change here?"

  "Things are changing here." He looked at me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. "Good things."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything. Just leaned against his shoulder and watched the sun go down.

  * * *

  November 28th

  The Monday after Thanksgiving, I finally heard from my mother.

  Not directly, of course. That would have required actual communication. Instead, I got a mass text clearly meant for the entire family group chat, which I'd been removed from years ago but which Aunt Catrina had apparently re-added me to without asking.

  Mom: Wonderful Thanksgiving everyone! So grateful for family and good health. Brittany's news about the baby was the highlight! Can't wait for Christmas. Speaking of which, I expect everyone at my house by 2pm on the 25th. Sam, that includes you. Bring your "friend" if you still have one. :)

  The smiley face was somehow more insulting than the quotes around "friend."

  Brittany: Can't wait mom! Chad is so excited to announce the gender reveal party details!

  Aunt Catrina: We're all so happy for you sweetie! Sam, your mother tells me you spent Thanksgiving alone? That's so sad. You really should make more of an effort with family.

  I stared at my phone, thumb hovering over the keyboard. A dozen responses formed and dissolved in my mind. None of them were appropriate for a family group chat.

  Me: I wasn't alone. I spent the day with Scott. And yes, we're still together. See you at Christmas.

  Then I muted the chat and threw my phone across the room.

  * * *

  Scott called that night, somehow sensing that I needed to hear a friendly voice.

  "Bad day?"

  "Family drama." I was curled up on my ugly-beautiful green couch, wrapped in my brown blanket, watching the city lights through my window. "My mom re-added me to the family group chat just to remind me that I'm a disappointment."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "You're not a disappointment."

  "According to Diane Marion, I'm a thirty-year-old unemployed spinster who couldn't even manage to show up for Thanksgiving. The fact that she uninvited me has apparently been memory-holed."

  "That's..." Scott paused, clearly searching for a diplomatic response. "That's a lot."

  "That's my family."

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "Not really." I pulled the blanket tighter. "Tell me about your day instead. Distract me."

  So he did. He told me about a client who'd had a meltdown because their password reset wasn't working (they'd been typing it in the wrong field for twenty minutes). About the coffee shop where he'd tried a new pastry that was "aggressively mediocre." About the chapter he'd read last night, where Aurora finally kissed Allister in the ruins of the Midnight Court.

  "Wait," I interrupted. "You're already at the kiss? That's like chapter fifteen."

  "I may have stayed up until 2 AM reading."

  "Scott."

  "I needed to know if he was going to communicate his feelings like an adult or continue being emotionally constipated."

  "And?"

  "He's still emotionally constipated. But in a romantic way."

  I laughed, and some of the tension in my chest loosened. "That's the whole point. The yearning."

  "The yearning is going to give me a stress ulcer. They've both admitted they care about each other. Why can't they just talk about it?"

  "Because then there wouldn't be a book three."

  "Book three better have some payoff, is all I'm saying."

  We talked for two hours. About nothing important. Books, movies, the best ways to cook eggs, whether pineapple belonged on pizza (he said yes, I said absolutely not, we agreed this was a dealbreaker we'd simply have to live with). By the time we hung up, my mother's texts felt like they'd happened to someone else.

  * * *

  December 1st

  Thursday. The first day of December. I woke up to frost on my windows and a text from Kate.

  I stared at it for a full minute before I could make myself read it.

  Kate: Heard from Jessica Hudson yesterday. She's doing okay. Wanted you to know.

  That was it. Nothing else. No "how are you," no olive branch, no indication that she wanted to hear from me. Just that one piece of information, delivered with the emotional warmth of a weather report.

  But she'd texted. For the first time since she'd blocked my number, she'd reached out. That had to mean something, right?

  I typed and deleted five different responses before settling on:

  Me: I'm glad she's okay. Thank you for telling me.

  The message delivered. No response came.

  I spent the rest of the day in a fog, unable to focus on anything. I tried to practice my abilities. Small things, safe things, adjusting the temperature of my coffee, changing the color of a pen. But my concentration was shot. Every time I reached for the code, Kate's face appeared in my mind. Her expression when she'd confronted me. The hurt in her voice when she'd said "I can't do this anymore."

  I'd done that to her. I'd taken our friendship and smashed it because I was too focused on revenge to think about consequences.

  And now she was reaching out, however tentatively. And I had no idea what to do about it.

  * * *

  December 3rd

  Saturday. Scott and I had plans to go to a holiday market, one of those pop-up things with craft vendors and hot cider and way too many people in ugly Christmas sweaters. I'd been looking forward to it all week.

  But when he picked me up, he took one look at my face and changed the plans.

  "You look like you haven't slept in three days."

  "I've slept. Some. Probably."

  "Sam."

  "There's just... stuff. On my mind."

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. New plan. We're going to my place, ordering pizza, and you're going to tell me what's wrong. Or not tell me. Either way, you're not wandering around a crowded market looking like someone ran over your puppy."

  "I don't have a puppy."

  "Metaphorical puppy. The puppy of your emotional wellbeing." He opened the passenger door for me. "Get in. We're doing comfort activities."

  "Comfort activities?"

  "Pizza. Bad movies. Maybe that alcoholic kombucha my sister sent. Whatever you need."

  I got in the car.

  * * *

  Scott's apartment was exactly as I remembered it from Thanksgiving. Comfortably messy. Full of books and plants. Eduardo the alien watching from his place of honor on the shelf.

  "Make yourself at home," Scott said, disappearing into the kitchen. "I'm ordering from that place with the garlic knots you liked."

  I settled onto his couch, the one that sagged in the middle, the one with the worn quilt, the one that somehow felt more like home than my own expensive furniture. The afternoon light filtered through windows that needed cleaning, casting warm shadows across the cluttered coffee table.

  "Kate texted me," I said, when Scott came back with two beers.

  He handed me one and sat down beside me. "The friend you had the falling out with?"

  "Yeah. She just... said she'd heard from someone. Someone who was hurt by the thing I did."

  "The thing you won't tell me about."

  "Yeah."

  Scott was quiet for a moment. "Do you want to tell me about it? The thing?"

  I thought about it. Really thought about it. I'd been carrying this secret for so long now. The powers, the code, all of it. And Scott was here, being patient and kind and not pushing, and part of me desperately wanted to just... let it out. Tell someone. Stop being alone with this impossible thing that had taken over my life.

  But I wasn't ready. Not yet.

  "It's complicated," I said finally. "I did something that I thought was right. Something that exposed a bad person. But the way I did it... I lied to Kate. I went behind her back. And when she found out, she felt betrayed."

  "Was she right to feel that way?"

  "Yes." The word came out smaller than I intended. "I should have told her. I should have trusted her. Instead, I just... did what I thought needed to be done, and didn't think about how it would affect her."

  "Do you regret it? The thing you did?"

  I considered the question. Greg Harrison's face flashed through my mind. The spreadsheet of payments. The women he'd hurt. The decades of abuse covered up with money and NDAs.

  "I regret how I did it. I regret losing Kate. But the actual thing..." I shook my head. "No. That person deserved to be exposed. I just wish I'd found a way to do it that didn't destroy everything else."

  Scott nodded slowly. "That's fair."

  "Is it?"

  "You can believe something was the right thing to do and still wish you'd done it differently. Those aren't contradictory." He took a sip of his beer. "For what it's worth, I think the fact that you're torn up about it says something good about you. You're not rationalizing. You're not pretending you didn't hurt anyone. You're sitting with the complexity of it."

  "Sitting with the complexity sounds very therapy-speak."

  "My mom made me see a counselor after my dad died. Some of it stuck." He smiled, but there was something sad underneath it. "The guy told me that grief isn't about feeling one thing at a time. You can miss someone and be angry at them and feel guilty and relieved all at once. The same is true for complicated decisions. You can know you did the right thing and still grieve the costs."

  I didn't know what to say to that. So I leaned against him, let my head rest on his shoulder, and just... breathed.

  "Thank you," I said quietly.

  "For what?"

  "For not judging. For not asking questions I can't answer. For just... being here."

  His arm came around me, warm and solid. "Always."

  We stayed like that until the pizza arrived. Then we ate garlic knots and watched a terrible movie about killer Christmas elves and didn't talk about anything heavy for the rest of the night.

  It was exactly what I needed.

  * * *

  That night, I wrote in my journal:

  December 3rd

  Kate texted. Just a few words, but it was something. Maybe not forgiveness, but at least acknowledgment that I still exist.

  Scott is... I don't have words for what Scott is. Patient. Kind. The kind of person who changes plans because he can tell you're struggling. The kind of person who sits with you in your mess without trying to fix it.

  I don't deserve him. I'm keeping secrets from him, huge, reality-altering secrets, and he just keeps showing up anyway.

  Part of me wants to tell him everything. Part of me is terrified that if I do, he'll look at me the way Kate did. Like I'm a stranger. Like he doesn't know me at all.

  But I can't keep this secret forever. Can I?

  Maybe after Christmas. Maybe when things settle down. Maybe when I figure out how to explain the unexplainable.

  For now, it's enough that he's here. That I'm not alone.

  That has to be enough.

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  Want to read ahead? My has the rest of book one and a bonus prequel chapter. Patience is overrated anyway.