“Patrice, if I were you I’d sit with what you want with Easton for a bit, before you go and try to talk to him. Easton deserves someone who can show him that he’s worthy of love. There’s no one more painfully aware of their privilege than that man. That doesn’t mean he won’t falter, or that you won’t.”

I closed my eyes, wondering if there was even a chance this would work out. “I’m going to think on this some. Thanks for listening and going somewhat easy on me.”

“You’re welcome. Do right by him, P, and by you, you both deserve it.”

I ended the call and immediately opened the Twitter app, as I usually did when I felt like I was burning up with something to say. But after a second, I thought about the urgency I was feeling. This wasn’t something I wanted to share with the world, it was private and it already belonged to someone.

I tapped my phone until I had the message app open, and hesitated for a second, afraid that I would be rebuffed or ignored. Pri’s words started to make sense then. I kept myself so primed for disappointment, for the people who came into my life to hurt me, that I never fully felt anything, not the joy, not the pain. I’d started feeling that with Easton, but I’d pushed him away too. To get what I deserved I needed to start showing all the way up.

I tapped the message like six different times, until I realized that I was trying to text what I thought I should say, instead of just saying what I meant.

I should have said thank you.

I put the phone in my breast pocket as I got up from the small love seat in my office and moved to my desk, hoping to get some work done on this eventful morning. But as soon as I opened up the internet browser, I felt my phone buzzing. I pressed my hand over the pocket and took a deep breath, before I dared look at the message. I smiled sadly at Easton’s refusal to do anything less than to put his whole self out there.

You being all right is thank you enough.

As I put my phone back into my pocket a small bubble of something that felt dangerously like hope started blossoming in the middle of my chest.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Easton

“You’re not going to back out, right?” Cindy asked me for what felt like the hundredth time as I got ready to go give my statement to the press to officially announce my run for DA. This was Tompkins County, so it’s not like it was an actual press conference, but there would be a couple of journalists from the local media outlets to ask me some questions.