Teeth

The bathroom mirror at 6:14 AM showed Wren Garret exactly what he expected: gray creeping through dark hair at the temples, the faint lines around his eyes that clients called distinguished, the carefully maintained tan from weekend golf. He'd been performing this inspection for twenty-two years, ever since the first junior partnership. The face that looked back had closed deals worth eight figures.

He tilted his jaw left, studying the angle. Something about the line of it looked different this morning — heavier, maybe, or more defined. The light, probably. He reached for his razor.

And paused.

Something caught the light wrong.

Wren leaned closer to the mirror, pulling his upper lip back. His left canine reflected the vanity bulbs at an angle that didn't match the tooth beside it. He ran his tongue across the surface. Smooth enamel, then — there — a ridge that shouldn't exist.

The razor clattered into the sink.

He pressed his fingertip against the tooth's edge. Sharp enough to notice. Not sharp enough to cut, but definitely not the rounded surface that had been there yesterday. A chip, probably. He'd been grinding his teeth lately, waking up with his jaw clenched tight enough to ache.

Wren rinsed his face and finished shaving, but his tongue kept finding that edge. During breakfast — black coffee, no food, never food before nine — he caught himself running his tongue across the canine every few seconds. The ridge felt more pronounced than it had twenty minutes ago.

"You're doing the thing," Bryce said from across the kitchen island. She didn't look up from her phone, her index finger tapping against the marble countertop. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"What thing?"

"The tongue thing. The clicking." She glanced at him, her expression flat. "You're not getting sick, are you? The Hendersons' party is Saturday."