The space between them didn't reset.
It held.
Tense. Deliberate.
Chosen.
Galathea Brooks didn't step back after saying it. She didn't soften it, didn't correct it, didn't pretend she hadn't meant exactly what she said.
Honest.
She pulled back a little, only to look at him after a deep kiss, the sensation lingering on her tongue, on her lips.
Cael watched her like he was recalibrating something internal-- something that didn't quite align with the rules he had spent years enforcing.
"Honesty," he repeated the last word he heard from her, "That's what you're calling this."
"It is." She whispered
His gaze dropped briefly to her hand still resting against his chest. Then back to her eyes.
"You're standing in the middle of an unstable system," he said. "And choosing to lean into it."
Galathea chuckles as she feigned looking at the arms wrapped around her. "Yes." Her lips curved faintly.
The answer didn't provoke him.
It unsettled him.
