Page 53 of Split Decision

"What do you want to do?" he asks.

"Nothing yet." The same answer I keep giving. "I need him to find it himself. If I push before he's ready, he'll defend her. He trusts her." I pause. "He more than trusts her."

Travis nods slowly. He's met Brandon twice—once in Atlanta before the tour launched, and once when Brandon came to the Charlotte show. He's perceptive enough to have noticed.

"The harder it is to see something about a person," Travis says carefully, "the harder it is when you finally see it."

"I know."

"He's going to need someone whenthat happens."

"You’re right." I pull my knees up on the bench seat. "Luke needs to be the one. Not me. Brandon will hear it differently from Luke."

"You've already thought this through."

"I've had a lot of bus hours."

Travis almost smiles. He straightens and moves toward the back of the bus, then pauses.

"Andi?"

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, the fact that you're thinking about how this affects Brandon tells me you're still doing what you do." He looks at me evenly. "You're building toward something. Not just surviving it."

He disappears into his bunk.

I sit with the tea until it goes cold.

Brandon found something. He's pulling it himself. He's being careful about what he says to me, which means he's protecting either me or Marin or both from something he hasn't fully formed yet.

Good.

Let him find it cleanly. Let him arrive at the door himself.

When he knocks, someone will be there.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ANDI

The bus to St. Louis leaves at eleven-fifteen.

I know this because Katelyn has announced it four times in the last hour, each time with the clipped efficiency of someone who believes that repetition constitutes authority. I've been on the bus since ten-forty-five. I have a book I'm not reading, a mug of tea that's gone cold, and the low, specific hum of exhaustion that comes not from lack of sleep but from the sustained effort of pretending wellness.

Chicago was good. The audience was with us from the first note—the kind of crowd that gives energy instead of taking it, that makes two hours feel like twenty minutesand leaves you standing in the wings afterward slightly stunned that it's over. I love those shows.

I love them in a way that makes it harder to get back on the bus.

I put on the show. Then I come back to this, and the show is over, and what's underneath it is still there.

Luke and I are in an odd rhythm right now. Not broken—I’m careful with my words and thoughts about us—but stretched. Like something that's strong in its material but operating under more tension than it was built for. We talk. We tell each other the true things. But there are true things we tell each other too fast, in windows that close before the other person has time to receive them properly, and then we move on because the window is gone.

Last week, he told me that Mack was giving him a hard time about focus, and beneath it, I could hear he was scared he was losing something he'd worked so hard to build. I wanted time to process that and work through the mechanics with him. I wanted to understand where his head is, what’s on his mind, and what’s distracting him while he’s in a specialized camp. These are important points, especially since he has a fight coming up and can’t afford any distractions. But I had only two minutes before his sparring session.

Two minutes is enough to say I hear you. That's not enough to actually be there in the way he needs me. I'm trying to decide whether that's a temporary condition or a new one when Travis sits down across from me.

He doesn't ask if he can. We're past asking. He just sits and sets a fresh cup of tea in front of me to replace the cold one, which tells me he's been paying more attention than I've realized.