"First. The photograph on my porch rail yesterday afternoon. Did you take it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Where is it?"
"Doesn't exist anymore."
I nod, slow. I’m not surprised in the least bit.
That's the answer I came over here to confirm, and getting it makes the anger settle another degree.
"Second."
"Yeah."
"I'm furious, Rogue."
He doesn't say anything. He waits.
"I’m so angry I could break a window with my hand."
He doesn't move.
"I'm angry at him. I'm angry that I stood there and let him stand that close to me. I'm angry that I thanked him for stopping by, when I should have told him to get his ass off my porch."
I'm pacing his front room. I didn't realize I'd started pacing.
"I'm angry that I'm the kind of woman who got raised that polite. And I'm angry that I'm thirty years old and Istilldon't know how to throw a man off my own land."
"Twenty-eight."
"What?"
"You're twenty-eight."
It takes me a half second to understand what he just did.
He's been listening. He's heard me say my age once in two months, in passing, and he's stored it.
He's offering it to me as a small steady fact in the middle of my anger because he can see I don’t have my shit together.
I almost laugh, but I don't.
"I'm twenty-eight," I say. "And I still don't know how to throw a man off my own land. I'm angry that you had to take the photo because I couldn't bring myself to, and I'm angry — "
I stop.
My voice is shaking. I’m not going to cry. I refuse to cry about Todd Whitley.
Rogue takes one step toward me. Not into my space. Just close enough that I can feel the heat of him in the small room. "Hadley."
"What."
"You did the right thing yesterday."
"I let him stand on my porch and talk to me about Garrett's mama."
"You got him off your porch without giving him a reason to come back the same way."