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She laughed. Small, still fragile from the migraine, but real. “To be fair, they are pretty ridiculous.”

“They’re necessary. That’s different.”

Simple. Factual. No pity attached. No careful tone that meant he was handling her. He accepted what she’d told him and adjusted and kept going, the same way he’d walked into her kitchen and started making eggs.

No drama. No processing out loud.

A knot she’d been carrying loosened somewhere deep in her chest. The knot of being the only person who knew. The weight of performing normal for an entire adult life. She wasn’t alone with it anymore.

“Fallon doesn’t know,” she said. “She knows that I’m good with patterns, but not that it extends to people and that I have no way of shutting it off.”

“Why haven’t you told her?”

“Because I don’t want her to look at me differently. And because she has enough on her plate with her own chronic illness.” The truth of it landed as she said it. “She thinks I’m shy and I get headaches and I prefer to work alone. That’s easier than the real thing.”

“The real thing being that your brain is extraordinary and it costs you more than anyone knows.”

She looked at him across her tiny kitchen table. He’d made her breakfast. He’d sat in a chair all night. He’d just called the worst thing about her extraordinary.

“You need to go,” she said. “You have prep today.”

“I know. Sleep, then briefing with Fallon at noon, then gear and transport.”

Neither of them moved.

“What time do you leave tonight?”

“Ten.”

After that, he’d be inside the Diehls’ operation and she’d be in the lab and they would be in different worlds.

She stood up. He stood up. The kitchen was small enough that standing put them close.

“Be safe,” she said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“That’s not good enough. Be safe.” She held his eyes. “I mean it, Ryder.”

She kissed him.

She didn’t plan it; her mouth just found his.

He went still. His whole body held, every muscle locking in place, like he’d never been kissed before and he wasn’t sure what to do.

Then his hands came up. Slowly, carefully, settling on her arms with a restraint she could feel in his fingertips. He was holding back, and she didn’t know why. There was a gentleness in his grip that didn’t match the size of his hands, something almost reverent that she didn’t have a framework for.

She pulled back. His eyes were closed. When he opened them, there was something on his face she’d never seen from him. Open and unguarded and raw in a way that made her breath catch.

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he stepped back.

The space between them opened up, and she felt it physically. The air where he’d been standing was cooler now.

“I’ll be on comms,” she said. Her voice wasn’t as steady as she wanted it to be. “Whatever you need. Whatever happens. I’ll be there.”

“I know.”

He touched her face. Just his fingers, light against her jaw, tracing it. Then his hand dropped.