He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated, like he wanted to claw his way out of his own skin. "I was driving home. I swear to God, I was. I even rehearsed what I was going to say. I was going to  beg you to forgive me for being late, try to salvage something. at least have a cake as a family"
His voice dropped to a raw whisper. "And then she called."
I stared at him, my chest tight, waiting.
"She was hysterical. I mean sobbing. Couldn't breathe properly. She said she lost her cat. She didn't know the neighborhood, didn't know what to do. She was on speaker, and I could hear the panic—like she was going to collapse in the street. And I—" He swallowed. 
I scoffed. "you went to save the damsel and her feline."
"Yeah...I told myself your birthday was already ruined, so what's the harm in one detour. I mean I thought I owed her after what she did for me."
"And that's when you called me," I said.
"Yes," he admitted. "I could have said just work but I couldn't lie to you, and I was so frustrated that you seemed like you didn't believe me. Like saving her cat was some kind of pretext to go to her house."
"It took you hours Thomas!" I snapped.
"Because I didn't want to be alone with her!" he said, the words tumbling out in a rush, uneven and breathless, "So I called Charly and Leo, they live close by, and asked them to meet me there—to help out, to make it look like I needed backup. But really... I just needed people around. I didn't want us to be alone."

"What do you mean?" I asked, the words quieter than I intended.
He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand down his face, his eyes darting away from mine. "This wasn't the office. There was no desk between us. No fluorescent lights. No formal agenda or email thread to pin it on. It was just me and her in her space. It was her neighborhood. Her home. Her invitation. it felt inapproapriate, it felt like crossing a boundary."
I let the silence stretch for a beat, then pierced it. My voice was sharp, clipped. "You think that you didn't already cross a line?"
His face fell, like he'd hoped I wouldn't say it out loud. Like part of him still needed to hear it to believe it.
"I know now that I did," he said quietly. "Then... I was convincing myself it didn't. I kept drawing these invisible boundaries in my head. 'It's just a text.' 'It's just a coffee.' 'It's just helping her out.' But each time, I moved the line further. And each time, I told myself I hadn't crossed anything."
I shook my head slowly, trying to understand the mental gymnastics, the willful blindness. "And after you found the cat and the guys had left?"
He looked up at me then, guilt sitting heavy in his eyes. "She asked me to come inside."
I didn't look away. "And?"
"I said no."
"Really?"
"Yes." He straightened his shoulders, almost like he was bracing for disbelief. "Because I knew. Walking through that door... being alone in her house after everything that had already happened? It would've been a betrayal. Even without touching her. Even if we sat on opposite ends of the room and didn't say a word."
I stared at him, carefully, measuring the shape of the truth in his voice. "Were you scared you wouldn't resist?"
"No," he said. "It was never like that. I was scared because it already felt too intimate. Because I was already feeling guilty. That would've just sealed it."
"You were angry when you called to explain why you were late. You didn't even sound sorry."
"I was angry," he said quietly. "But I wasn't angry at you—I was angry at myself. Frustrated. And then you kept saying, 'A cat? A cat, Thomas,' like—because it was just a cat—it didn't matter."