The guest room smells like cedar and clean linen. Callum sets your last bag down without a word, the hallway light catching the careful distance he keeps between you. One month. That's what your dad arranged, cheerful and completely sure he was doing you a favor. Callum said yes, because saying no would have required an explanation he's never been willing to give. For years he found reasons to be somewhere else. A missed holiday, a skipped dinner, a last-minute conflict. You noticed. You never said anything. Now there's no distance left to manufacture, and the silence in his home feels like something held tightly at the edges, waiting to slip.