Kierk strokes her hair. “So what should we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“So . . . Everything is alright?”

“Sure,” Carmen says, calming down, suppressing a tremble in her leg. “You’re busy?”

“I was actually about to head to the gym.”

“Oh, no. Yeah, that’s fine,” Carmen says, pulling away immediately.

“Are you sure everything is okay?”

“Go. Go. I’m fine. I have stuff to do here anyways. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

Her brave face must have worked because he seems to accept her nodding.

He looks about to say something more but instead says—“Okay. Good.”

Leaving, Carmen makes sure she goes the opposite way down the hallway, then immediately rushes to the women’s restroom where she sits in a stall and cries and cries.

Panting, wiping the sweat from his forehead, Kierk is finishing his post-workout run, stalking through the lobby of his apartment building. Even despite the drama with Greg, and his guilt about trying to remain distant from Carmen, Kierk had spent most of his workout thinking about Antonio Moretti’s upcoming talk. In this field he would have to see Antonio again at some point, it was inevitable.