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Briggs picks up another photograph from the table. His eyebrows rise. “You’re sending this?”

I take it from him.

The picture shows me shirtless inside my bedroom. My hair is damp from the shower, and gray sweatpants sit low across my hips. The camera angle leaves no question about what Charm will notice first.

“She sent me a letter containing a threat to pull another woman’s tongue through her asshole.”

“That doesn’t explain the thirst trap.”

“She asked what my life looks like.”

“She asked for a picture of your dick?”

“My dick isn’t visible.”

“It is staging a coup beneath those sweatpants.”

I add the photograph to the stack. “Charm will appreciate the composition.”

“You took twenty before choosing this one.”

“Get out of my apartment.”

Briggs lifts both hands. “I support romance.”

“You support being a pain in my ass.”

“Those can happen together.”

His gaze shifts toward the blank paper waiting near the photographs. “What are you writing?”

“A letter.”

“I gathered that from the paper and pen.”

I slide the photographs into a black envelope. “I want one letter that doesn’t ask her to dissect everything she did wrong.”

Briggs leans one hip against the table. “A love letter?”

“We have been writing love letters for months.”

“No, you’ve been exchanging emotional depositions with occasional literary references.”

“That sounds like love to me.”

“That explains a lot about you.”

I look at the empty page.

Charm and I have named every wound until neither of us can pretend ignorance. She has taken responsibility without requiring forgiveness. I have answered without using honesty as another weapon.

We still have work ahead of us.

Love has never been part of that work.

Briggs reaches for the photograph of us near the window. “Send this one.”

“I am.”