A Change of Worlds
Book 5 of the Killian Kendall Mysteries
By Josh Aterovis
Copyright 2026
Blurb:
Killian Kendall has seen his share of darkness — but nothing like this. When a routine case investigating a series of thefts from a Native American archaeological site unearths a trail of looting and lies, Killian finds himself pulled into a mystery that blurs the line between the living and the dead. A simple case of missing artifacts quickly escalates to violence and murder. Killian must navigate small-town suspicion, fragile alliances, and his own unraveling heart as whispers from beyond the veil grow harder to ignore. Some truths refuse to stay buried...and some connections transcend death itself.
A Change of Worlds is the fifth book in the Killian Kendall Mystery series.
Reader Advisory:
A Change of Worlds contains depictions of murder and violence (including gun violence). The story includes scenes involving death and grief, as well as brief supernatural elements connected to spirits and the afterlife.
Author Bio:
Josh Aterovis is the award-winning author of multiple LGBTQ+ novels blending mystery, romance, suspense, and the supernatural, including seven novels and multiple short stories in the acclaimed Killian Kendall Mysteries series. His work explores themes of identity, chosen family, grief, healing, and queer resilience, often centering flawed but deeply human characters navigating extraordinary circumstances. Known for emotionally grounded storytelling and vivid atmosphere, Josh’s books have earned a devoted readership among fans of queer fiction and genre-bending narratives.
In addition to his work as a novelist, Josh is an immersive theater creator and producer with Submersive Productions in Baltimore, Maryland, where he develops original, site-specific experiences that blur the line between audience and performer. His storytelling across both page and stage is driven by a passion for creating meaningful, transformative experiences that invite audiences to connect, reflect, and imagine new possibilities.
Prologue
The spirits were restless.
And so was he.
He shifted under the tangled sheets, turning first to one side, then the other, as though he might outmaneuver the invisible weight pressing in around him. For the first time in his life, he wished he weren’t quite so sensitive to the ebb and flow of the ethereal plane. Ever since the excavation began, sleep had become elusive, broken by whispers and the prickling awareness that he was never truly alone.
At last, as he had every night for weeks, he surrendered with a weary sigh and reached for the lamp. Light pooled across the room, chasing the shadows to the corners but never fully banishing them. He propped himself up with extra pillows, the ritual long since practiced, and stretched out a hand toward the uneven tower of books on his nightstand. His fingers closed around a spine at random — though he smiled as he drew it free, for he didn’t believe in randomness.
Very little in life happened by chance.
The book in his lap was an old companion, a worn, faded copy of Touch the Earth. Its sepia-toned cover gave little hint of the resonance inside: a collection of speeches, letters, and fragments of wisdom from Native voices, some well known, others lost to history. He had read it so many times that he knew exactly what he was looking for before the pages even parted. There was a reason his hand had found this volume tonight.
He thumbed quickly, almost reverently, through the yellowed pages until he reached the passage that had been tugging at the edges of his thoughts. His finger traced down the familiar column of words, stopping at the one speech that never failed to ground him—or unsettle him, depending on the night.
The words attributed to Si’ahl, remembered now as Chief Seattle.
"Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant-lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely-hearted living and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
"And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth, there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
"Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."
He closed the book and set it aside thoughtfully. He realized there was controversy about what Chief Seattle actually said in his speech, given in 1854 in the Salish language. Scholars quibbled over translations; journalists loved the version that read well in print. He didn’t care. Even if the words were not verbatim, the intent lived in them, and that was what mattered to him — the sense of responsibility to the land, the plea for respect. Usually the passage folded around his shoulders like a warm blanket and settled the restless edges of his mind.
Not tonight.
He looked over at the stack of books by the bed and thought about selecting another one — something drier, maybe, something that would distract — but the pull was too strong. The spirits were more insistent than usual. He could almost feel them pulling at him, tugging at the sleeve of his pajama shirt. He sighed and let the feeling wash through him.
He couldn't sleep until he'd checked on the site.
He hauled himself out of bed, joints complaining in the small, private way of age. He pulled on a pair of jeans over his pajama bottoms and a well-worn pair of work boots, then opened his bedroom door.
As he passed his grandson's bedroom, he stopped to peek in. The boy slept peacefully, just as the old man had expected. While the teen had many strong gifts, he had little sensitivity to the spirits. The old man wondered, sometimes with a dull regret, how different things might have been if his grandson had been raised to respect the old ways, to respect the earth, acknowledge the spirits, to leave tobacco at the right moments. But the past was a tight knot; pulling at it now would do nothing. What is done is done, he told himself. Everything happens for a reason.
He took the flashlight from the basket by the door. It was a new moon, the sky a broad, black cloth smeared with a few indifferent stars. He'd need the light. His eyes weren't what they used to be.
He opened the door and the summer air folded over him: humid and sweet, carrying the green, damp scent of the forest and the faint metallic tang that came after the day's heat cooled. He let his hair down from its braid — an old rebellion that made him smile — and for a heartbeat a warm breeze threaded through the strands, lifting the scent of cut grass and new leaves. Winter had finally conceded, and the mercurial Maryland weather had rushed straight into a stubborn summer.
He set off toward the dig.
The path was rough, a narrow track worn by boots and deer hooves. The only way to the excavation was on foot. He'd walked it many times in daylight, but at night, the forest seemed to press around him like a thing alive, full of rustlings and small movements. He favored a slow, sure pace. Hurrying belonged to younger bodies. They didn't call him a tribal elder for nothing.
His smile faded as he neared the site. The sense of restlessness hardened into agitation. As he moved closer to the clearing, the air changed—thinner, somehow, as if the world had inhaled. He slowed, senses narrowing to that single, uncomfortable needle of awareness.
As he stepped into the small clearing the archaeologists had created, he stopped in his tracks. Something was wrong. The white tarp they used to cover the pits at night was flapping in the breeze. He knew the students were very careful when they left for the weekend.
Someone had been there, someone who had no business being there in the middle of the night. A vandal? No wonder the ancestors were troubled.
He took another step into the site when suddenly he felt the spirits recoil, followed by a sense of alarm. He hardly had time to register the warning before there was a sound behind him, small and feather-light: a footfall meant to be unseen.
He started to turn, but it was too late.
The blow came hard — a blunt thing across the side of his head that burst his vision into white fire. Pain folded him in two. He hit the earth with the breath knocked out of him, the flashlight skittering away, its beam carving a frantic arc before vanishing into the trench.
He tried to raise himself enough to get a look at his assailant, but the world rippled. Heat and pressure tightened across his chest as if some invisible hand had clenched his ribs.
He heard the anonymous assailant pounding away in retreat — heavy steps, quickly growing distant.
A searing pain began to run down his left arm. He knew the feeling. He had felt this particular current of agony before. Memory supplied the name: heart attack. The recognition did not bring comfort. He had survived one once, but survival had been a compromise, not a promise. Now, lying among the damp leaves and the overturned earth, he felt the familiar dread creep in along with the cramps and the nausea.
So this is where I die, he thought.
There were teachings yet to pass on, apologies to make, stories that had not found their listeners. He watched the tree branches stitch the sky into a gray lattice and felt the spirits draw close, relatives arriving for a vigil.
I'm not ready, he thought, and the words were small and honest and terrible.
Chapter 1
I sat at my desk typing away at the computer, fingers flying, eyes blurring. It felt like I’d been at it for hours. A quick glance at the clock confirmed the depressing truth — I had been at it for hours.
Novak had bailed long ago. Not that I'd expected him to stick around anyway, but I also hadn’t planned on being there that late myself. Unfortunately, the mountain of paperwork had other ideas. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly the stuff multiplied. Paperwork was like kudzu — you turned your back for a second and suddenly it was everywhere.
In the private investigation business, paperwork was as inevitable as taxes and just about as fun. Between lawyers and insurance companies, every tiny detail had to be logged, signed, stamped, or filed in triplicate. A client might forget your name the second their case closed, but heaven help you if a date on a form wasn’t filled in properly.
I was just wrapping up a report on a case I’d finished earlier that day. An insurance company had sent us to look into a claim about a supposed work-related back injury. They suspected fraud. To be fair, insurance companies always suspect fraud. They love nothing more than to deny a claim. It just so happened that this time, they were right. The investigation had involved a whole lot of sitting in a borrowed apartment with stale coffee and cheap blinds, staring at a house across the street and hoping for something — anything — to happen. Thrilling work, really. By the end of it I could’ve drawn every crack in the guy’s driveway from memory.
Eventually, though, the payoff came. A few choice photographs of Mr. Bad Back trimming trees and hauling limbs the size of small children into his pickup truck were all the adjuster needed. Case closed, fraud exposed, and my sanity saved—barely.
I sent off the report and moved the case file to the top of my “done” pile, which barely deserved the name. Next to the Everest-sized stack of “to-do” files, it looked downright pitiful.
Business had been booming, all thanks to the Fenton Black case. After that little adventure hit the news, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing. We’d had more work than we could handle, which sounded great in theory but was a nightmare in practice — especially with me still trying to juggle college. We’d even had to start turning away clients, something that had once seemed unthinkable.
Between cases, classes, and keeping the office afloat, the paperwork had drawn the short straw. It had been shoved aside and left to fester until it reached critical mass. With my freshman year finally behind me, I was trying to claw my way back to zero. So far, though, I’d only managed to make a tiny dent, and every new case — like the one I’d just finished — only added more weight to the pile.
At this rate, I’d graduate with a degree and a permanent dent in my forehead from banging it on my desk.
My phone vibrated on my desk, alerting me to a text message. I snatched it up to check who it was from, welcoming the break.
"Hey Killian, what's up?" It was from my friend Jake.
"Hey Jake. Still at the office trying to catch up on paperwork. Glad you texted. I needed a break."
"Still at the office? Dude, you need to get out of there and go home"
"I know. Just so much to get done. What are you up to?"
"Not much, just sitting around the house trying not to die of boredom."
"lol" ...and I really did laugh. "How are you doing?"
"Still clean if that's what you mean."
"That's not what I meant but that's great!"
Jake had recently gone through rehab for drugs, and I knew he'd been fighting to keep from slipping up again. He'd been through some pretty rough stuff and had turned to drugs to escape.
A loud knock at the door caused me to jump. I kept the door locked when I was working in the evening.
"Who's there?"
"Special delivery for Killian Kendall," my boyfriend answered.
I breathed a sigh. "Just a second."
"Micah is here," I texted Jake. "I'm gonna go. Talk to you later."
I slid my phone in my pocket and jumped up to open the door for Micah.
He stepped in and swept me dramatically into his arms.
"I thought I might find you here." He kissed me on the tip of my nose. "I've come to rescue you from the perils and pitfalls of paperwork."
I laughed. "I have to get it done sometime," I protested weakly.
The truth was, I desperately wanted to be rescued.
"It'll wait." He released me and closed the door. "So what took you so long to get to the door? Have to hide your porn?"
"Ha-ha," I said dryly and stuck my tongue out at him. "For your information, I was texting with Jake."
"Oh really? How is he?"
"We didn't get to talk long, but he did say he was still sober."
"That's good, at least. You didn't ask him that, did you?"
"No! He volunteered the information. I know what the therapist said about supporting but not pressuring him."
"Okay, okay. I was just checking. Come on, let's go get some dinner."
"I dunno, Micah." I gave a glance at my desk. "I have so much stuff to do. Maybe we should just get some takeout and eat here."
"No way, Kill. You need to escape from this dump for a while. I'm taking you out to dinner, and I won't accept no for an answer."
I grinned. "How can I refuse an offer like that?"
I turned off the computer, locked up, and followed his broad shoulders down to the parking lot.
"Do you want to drive together, or should we take both cars?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It's up to you."
"Both cars," I decided. "That way I can just go home later and we don't have to come back here."
I was in the car before I realized I had no idea where we were going. I simply stuck close to Micah and pretended I was shadowing a suspect. I needed the practice, anyway. Tailing was not one of my more polished investigative skills.
I should have guessed, I thought, as he pulled into the parking lot of what I had come to think of as our diner. It was one of the few places besides fast-food joints that would still be open so late.
"Hey there, boys," we were greeted by our favorite waitress, Brynn. She led us to an empty table and handed us menus. "What can I getcha to drink tonight?"
We placed our beverage orders, then perused the extensive menu. I closed mine after a few seconds and set it aside. I already knew what I wanted: they made a fantastic chicken Caesar salad.
I couldn't help smiling as I watched Micah trying to figure out what he wanted. He had a habit of sticking the tip of his tongue out the corner of his mouth when he was thinking. He reached up to brush aside his dark hair, which had gotten a little longish lately and often fell into his face, covering his warm, chocolate eyes.
He glanced up and caught me staring. With a sheepish grin he pulled in his tongue. "Have you already decided?"
I nodded. "I'm having the chicken Caesar."
"Sounds good. I think I'll have the same. This menu is too damn big. I can never make up my mind before she comes back. Then I end up panic ordering something I don't really want."
I laughed as Brynn returned carrying two large glasses.
"What's so funny?" she asked, setting our drinks in front of us.
"Micah says you bully him into ordering things he doesn't want."
She looked a bit baffled, which only made me laugh harder.
"We're both having chicken Caesar salads," Micah informed her calmly, giving me a kick under the table.
"Are you sure that's what you want, hon?" she asked him with a concerned expression.
"Yes, thanks, Brynn. Just ignore Killian. He's a little loopy from working too much."
She shrugged and went off to place our orders with the cook.
While Micah waited patiently for me to stop laughing, he cleared his throat and started fiddling with his napkin. That sobered me up quickly. Micah wasn't really the fidgety type, which meant something was on his mind.
"So it's been really busy at work lately, huh?" he said after a moment.
I knew this wasn't what he really wanted to talk about, but I figured he needed to work up to whatever was weighing on him.
"It's been crazy. I was able to wrap up my current case today, though. I caught the guy red-handed. There'll be a nice paycheck coming in from that one."
"You've been making more money lately."
"That's the one good thing about being so busy. We can actually afford to turn away some of the less desirable jobs."
"What's an example of a less desirable job?"
"Divorce cases where the wife thinks the husband is cheating on her or vice versa. Things like that. They tend to get messy, and it's not fun dealing with people who are in such an emotionally charged place in their lives."
"I can imagine." He fell into a silence, seemingly lost in his thoughts. "I miss you," he said quietly after a while.
"I'm sorry, babe," I agreed with a sigh. "The downside of being so busy is that I hardly get to see anybody anymore."
"I've noticed," he observed dryly.
"I'll try to do better."
He shrugged. "I know it's not your fault. How's Adam?"
Another sigh. "You know as much as I do, really. I've barely even spoken to him at all this week. I'm never home except to sleep, and even then I'm staying at the B&B more and more often these days. It's so much closer than driving all the way to Ocean City, and there's pretty much always at least one room open. To be honest, I'm starting to think Steve's holding a room back just for me."
"How is Steve?"
"I see him a little more, but he's so busy running the B&B that we never really get to talk."
"Is business picking up?"
"It's picking up, slow but steady."
Brynn delivered our meals, and, after checking to see if we needed anything else, left us alone once more.
We ate in silence for a few minutes before Micah tried again. "So, uh, how's Tad?"
"I have no idea, Micah. We just finished saying how I'm completely out of the loop these days, remember? Come on, what's really on your mind? I can tell something is bugging you, so spill. It's not like you to beat around the bush."
"I've been offered a job," he blurted out.
"Really?" I asked excitedly, before I realized he wouldn't be this nervous if it was all good news. "What kind of job?" I asked, more cautiously.
"As an investigative reporter. I'd be making considerably more money, and it would be a lot more prestigious."
"Well, that's great then, right?" He didn't answer. "What's the catch?"
Micah looked away. "It's in New York."
"What?" I must have misheard him.
"It's with The New York Times."
My mouth made the smallest sound. "Oh." The syllable came out thin and flat. It was hard to get anything else past the sudden, busy knot in my chest. Prestigious — yes. Important — obviously. But New York was awfully far away. "Wow."
He went on, words tumbling as if he needed to prove something. "It's an incredible opportunity, especially for someone like me. It would be a huge jump. The paper here isn't exactly national."
"How did...how did they come to offer you the job?" My voice felt distant, like someone else's. An alarming thought occurred to me. "Did you apply?"
He grinned sheepishly — guilty and boyish all at once. "Remember a couple of months ago when I was feeling really restless at work?" I nodded. "I sent them my résumé just for the hell of it. I wasn't serious, simply annoyed with my editor and the office politics. I didn't think I'd actually hear anything back, but apparently one of the Times editors has a summer place down here and saw my work on the Fenton Black case. It impressed him enough that he saved my résumé. When a position opened up he offered it to me. They haven't even posted it yet."
"Wow," I repeated. The word scraped my throat. "That's...impressive. Congratulations."
The sentence felt hollow even as I spoke it. Impressive. Congratulations. Words had so little weight when the world shifted underneath you.
It began to sink in with the slowness of an incoming tide: Micah could be moving to New York. Four hours...if traffic was on your side. Could our relationship survive long distance? Did I even want that? Four hours meant missed dinners, fewer mornings waking up in his arms. Four hours would make our stolen weekends into rarer treasures.
I imagined him on a train platform at dawn, a life stacked into a backpack I couldn't fit into. The thought tightened the muscles at my throat until whatever I wanted to say lodged there like a stone.
"I'm not sure I'm taking it," he said suddenly, and the words cut clean through the fog in my head.
"Huh? Why wouldn't you take it? It's your dream job."
"It is a great chance, but my dream is to have a life with you. I don't think that can happen if I'm in New York and you're here."
Heat rose through me — not the playful warmth of something good, but that animal alarm that narrows everything into a single point. Of course he said that. Of course he would.
"Micah, don't be ridiculous. You can't pass up this opportunity for me."
"Yes, I can. But...it's not just up to me, Killian."
"What do you mean?"
"We're a couple, Kill. We're in this together. Whether I take this job or not will depend largely on you."
My chest constricted. "On me? You're going to make me decide?"
"In a way, yes. I'm ready to take our relationship to another level."
That sentence — another level — sounded like a promise and like a demand at the same time. My heart began to hammer against my ribs as if it were trying to break free. For a dizzy second I imagined him getting down on one knee right there in the diner. The image felt both terrifying and absurd. I knew I loved Micah. That had been obvious ever since we'd learned how to fit our pasts together. But marriage? I was only nineteen. I'd made fun of classmates who got married at nineteen. I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment.
"I want you to move in with me."
"Micah, I...you... What?" I'd been so sure he was about to propose that his actual words caught me off guard.
"Move in with me. I know you're not ready to get married, and, to be honest, neither am I, but this is the perfect solution."
"I...I..."
I sat there, stupid and stunned, the room narrowing to the two of us and the hard tile under my feet. He kept talking as if he had rehearsed this speech a thousand times...and maybe he had. "Think about it!" he urged, warming to the idea. "It makes perfect sense. If we lived together, we'd get to see each other more often. You were just saying how we never see one another. And you'd be even closer to work than you are at the B&B. Plus your stuff wouldn't be split between two places."
He was logical, practical — the same Micah who could balance budgets and emotions with equal care. It was tempting, the idea of waking up to his breathing, the lazy, stubborn way his hair fell across his forehead, the convenience of dinners that didn't have to be scheduled three days in advance. It was safety and treachery both. Safety because closeness felt like a balm, and treachery because any arrangement that asked me to give up the life I'd begun to build for myself felt, in its own way, like an erasure of my independence.
Then there were the late nights my job sometimes required. When I returned to an empty bed, I didn't feel guilty about disturbing someone else's sleep. That would all change if someone was waiting up for me, worrying.
I realized he was watching me closely, waiting for an answer.
"You've given this a lot of thought," I managed.
"I have." He smiled, and there was earnestness in it that made something inside me want to cave. "Of course, there is another option."
"And that is...?"
"You could come with me to New York."
I started shaking my head before he was even finished. "I can't. Everything I know is here: my family, my job, school. I can't just drop all that and move away. Not right now."
I felt like a child naming reasons why he couldn't leave home — practical, urgent, and somehow inadequate. There was truth in every excuse: Adam's kitchen, my small circle of friends, the cases I couldn't walk away from. But under those reasons was a hum of fear — of uprooting, of losing the particular scaffolding that had held me steady through the last few years. I thought of the days I had spent trying to find my footing after Seth's death, after my father kicked me out. Moving felt, in that moment, like risking the only solid ground I had left.
He reached across the table and took my hand like a small, steady anchor. "I know. That's why I came up with a viable alternative. Kill, I love what we have, but I want more. If you're willing to take the next step with me, then I'll stay. That would be worth more to me than any job anywhere."
His words were simple and devastating. The table between us felt suddenly like a map with a border down the middle — his life in one county, mine in another, and a bridge that cost him a career and might cost me my life.
I wanted to be the person who could say yes without thinking. I wanted to be the person who could promise him what he was asking for. But a dozen half-formed fears crowded forward: Was I ready to be relied on in that way? Would staying mean he would always wonder what he had given up? Was it fair to abandon my own career for his?
I swallowed. My voice came out small but honest. "I don't know if I can make that decision right now."
Micah's fingers tightened around mine, not angrily, but as if to reassure himself as much as me. "Then tell me what you need," he said. "If staying is what you want and if you can be sure, I'll turn it down. I'd rather have you here than a byline in any paper."
"It feels like what you're essentially saying is that you'd just be staying here for me. If I wasn't part of the equation, you'd take the job." The words were sharper than I meant them to be.
"But you are a part of the equation. A big part."
I sat for a minute trying to grab hold of my spinning thoughts.
“I’m going to need to think about this,” I said at last, the sentence coming out meadow-quiet because anything louder felt like a lie.
"I don't expect you to give me an answer tonight."
Relief and guilt arrived at once — relief because delay let me not be decisive, guilt because delay felt like politeness at the cost of something he wanted now. My chest tightened. “I mean, what if I say yes and you just come to resent me for ruining your big chance?”
He didn’t flinch. "That won't happen."
"How can you be so sure?" The question was small but edged with everything I couldn’t say: What if every headline he wanted was a reminder of the thing he’d sacrificed? What if our small life started to strangle him?
"Killian, I've never been so sure about anything. I want to be with you. If you say yes, that's all I need. I'm happy enough where I am. I enjoy the work, and I make decent money. I just need...I need more of a commitment from you. I feel we're coasting along. We've been dating for almost a year now, and we're barely any further than we were six months ago."
The logic of his argument was infuriatingly sensible. I felt childish for wanting to argue. Moving in together was a big step, but so was turning down the kind of opportunity most people framed as once-in-a-lifetime.
"This is...a lot. Moving in, I mean. It's a big deal."
"Yeah, it is. I'll understand if you feel you can't. I'm not trying to pressure you."
"And yet, I feel like my choice is to move in with you or you move away."
His face shifted, realizing he'd boxed me into a corner. "I didn't mean it like that. I wanted to include you in this decision-making process. I've been offered this incredible job in New York, but you're here, And I get it. This is your home, where you have a successful, growing career and your family, not to mention school. I can't ask you to leave all that. I want to stay here with you, but I need to be certain you're as committed to our relationship as I am before I pass on this job offer. I wouldn't be asking you to do this if I didn't think we could make it."
Hearing him weigh the practicalities of my life against his own ambition made my heart ache.
"So you're okay with me taking a little time to think this through?"
He nodded. "Of course. I totally understand. It's a big decision."
"Are you disappointed?"
"That you didn't just jump on the offer?" I nodded, and he shrugged. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed, but the truth is, this is what I really expected. You never make any decision quickly. It takes you a while to get used to new ideas."
The familiarity of that — him knowing me so well — both soothed and stung. I blushed despite myself. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize for being yourself, Killian. I love you just the way you are, and I wouldn't change you for anything."
He said it like it was a fact. It should have been enough to make my throat unclench. Instead it made me feel guilty for weighing my own anchors against his dream.
I gave him a small smile. "Thanks."
"Just don't take too long thinking about this. I have to let them know something within three weeks. That's when the guy I'd be replacing leaves, at which point they'll have to start advertising the opening."
I took a deep breath. "Three weeks, huh?"
"That doesn't mean you get the whole three weeks to stew over this," he added, a twinkle in his eye that tried to hold up the edges of a terribly serious conversation.
I grinned despite myself. "You know me too well."
“Damn straight — or not straight, as the case may be.” He sounded relieved enough to joke. The ultimatum was out there now, and the ball was in my court. “Now come on, finish your salad. I’m not paying for food you don’t eat.”
The banality of it — food, a salad, light ribbing — was almost cruelly normal. I forced a laugh and dug in, playing at calm. On the outside I was composed. On the inside, everything was messy and loud. The future split into possible maps in my mind, one where we stayed put and Micah chose love over journalism; one where he left and we floundered on late-night calls until we grew apart and broke up; one where I uprooted my life, gave up my career and everything I knew, and found myself lonely in a city that would not soften immediately to me.
I wanted, more than anything, to sit down with Adam and unpack all of this with someone who knew my history, my fears, and the parts of me I didn’t show to anyone else. I wanted counsel, bluntness, the kind of honesty that pinched but helped orient.
I finished the salad because Micah teased me into it, not because I was hungry. My appetite was long gone. But the ritual steadied me. Stab. Lift. Chew. Swallow.
The decision waited like a sealed envelope. I hoped I’d know how to unfold it. I hoped I’d do right by both of us.
Next Chapter
