THE RIDE TO THE RIVERFRONT was a stage show of repressed rage, quiet gloom, and unsaid words. Grey coasted through stop signs and barely acknowledged traffic lights. Connor sat beside me in the back seat, kept his hand locked around mine. Stared out the window, so I couldn’t see his face.
It didn’t take long to reach the warehouse, but we still sat in the lot for a solid minute before he let go of my hand and touched the door handle, hesitating. Grey turned in his seat, nudged Connor’s arm with a tentative knuckle.
“You sure you’re okay here, man? You can crash at our place, if you want.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride. And for bringing Sadie out.”
“No problem. Hey …” He paused, then reached into the center console cup holder, coming up with something small and silver. He held it out to Connor with a grim smile. “It doesn’t matter what happened with any of us, good or bad, okay? We’re your friends. We’re here for you.”
Connor’s shoulders sagged at those words. His hand closed around the offering; the other clenched and relaxed on the door handle, almost imperceptibly.
“Yeah.”
I met Grey’s eyes, communicating without words. He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded once and turned back to face the steering wheel. I pressed my hand to Connor’s back, felt it tense and quiver through his thin jacket, sending my heart into my throat. My voice slipped out small, but strong. Determined.
“I’ll stay with you.”
When he didn’t do more than sigh in response, I followed him out of the car, slid an arm around his waist, and guided him across the lot.
We weren’t even to the door when my phone buzzed. By the time I fumbled it out and read Grey’s message, he was halfway down the road.
I’ll pick you up in the morning for work. Let me know if you need a ride before then. Good luck.
The front room was empty, the main lights dim. Paul must have cleared the place out before heading to the station, likely guessing Connor would be in no shape to monitor anyone, regardless of how things went with the cops. I waited while he locked the door behind us, then followed him through the shadows to his room.
We stood side by side, staring at his futon. I moved my hand into his, eyes falling shut as he gripped it tight.
“Do you need anything? Should I order dinner, or make you some tea?” Tea, for fuck’s sake. I’d lived with Skye too long.
“Not really hungry. Thanks anyway.”
“Okay. If you need to get some work done, I can stay out of your way. Or we can talk. Whatever you want.”
He sighed, running a hand through the wreck of his hair. I swallowed my nerves before they burst from my mouth in a rush of words I couldn’t unsay.
“I need to sleep,” he said. “Sorry. I know it’s early, but—well, if you want to stay up, it’s fine. I get why.”
“I’ll try to sleep too. It hasn’t been as bad lately.”
“Okay.” His silence wailed through the room—then he moved abruptly, dropping my hand. Grabbed his bathroom caddy and headed for the door, head down, almost rushing. “I’ll go get cleaned up.”
Alone, I fidgeted and shifted, removed my boots, curled up cross-legged on the futon. Pulled my sleeves down to cover my hands, then pushed them back up again to my wrists. Unwound my hair elastic and unwound my braid, finger-combed the waves from the bottom up, wishing I’d thought to grab my messenger bag on the way out the door.
I hemorrhaged confidence by the liter waiting for him, every second that passed another second spent wondering why I was there. Why I’d thought he wanted me to stay in the first place, and whether I’d be doing him a favor if I disappeared before he returned, instead of hanging around casting shadows. My indecision stalled my action, though. When I looked up, it was too late.
He stood in the doorway in sweats and socks and glasses, face scrubbed, eyes sad. They moved along my shoulder and neck, down the curve of my arm and the length of my hair. Trailed back up my body to search my face. I wanted so badly to gather his splinters in the cup of my palm, to put them all back in the right order until he was whole and unbroken and everything worked again.
“Is this still okay, that I’m here? I don’t have anything to change into.”
“You can wear my stuff. The pants might be too long, but—”
“Just a shirt is fine.”
I looked away as he pulled a clean shirt from one of his clothing totes and handed it to me. I turned it over in my hands, forbidding myself from actually bringing it to my nose.
“My caddy’s on the sink. I kept your toothbrush. I mean—I hadn’t—wow, that sounds psychotic.” He rubbed a hand over his face, slipping his fingers beneath his glasses to press against his eye. “I should have thrown it out, but I … didn’t. So, it’s still there.”
“Okay. I’ll go get ready.”
He still had my toothbrush. It was where I’d left it, mixed in with his cologne and shaving cream, his contact lens solution and four kinds of soap. I focused on that single fact, that piece of me he hadn’t been able to throw away. It steeled me against the memory of slack-dead jaws and unblinking eyes, chased the shadows into the hallway: I was back in the warehouse, and it was just a bathroom. Aiden had died right there in the space next to my feet, and it was just a bathroom. Connor wanted me to stay, and he’d kept my toothbrush, and it was just a bathroom.
I had to be stronger than this.
I brushed my teeth and shed my clothes, used his comb to smooth my hair. Washed my face and dried it on the clean towel he’d left for me, then lost myself in an oversize T-shirt that smelled like him and made my eyes burn with longing. By the time I made my way back to the room, my breathing was almost normal. Connor sat on the edge of the futon, elbows resting on his knees. He raised his head at my footsteps, watched as I stowed his caddy in its place and set my clothes on the drafting table next to my purse. His hands worried a small object, turning it over and over between his fingers.
“What do you have there?” I hedged, witty and brilliant, and not at all an awkward human travesty.
“Not sure. Grey gave it to me in the car.”
My breath caught as he opened his hand. A silver trinity knot glinted in his outstretched palm.
“That’s his triquetra. Wow.” I smiled at the uncomprehending arch of Connor’s eyebrow. “It has a few different meanings across cultures, but to Grey, it’s a symbol of protection—his way of ensuring your safety. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but for him to give that to you—”
“I get it. This … means a lot, after everything.” It disappeared into his grip as he looked up to meet my eyes. “Are you okay? With being in that bathroom, and all?”
He’d been through hell that day, and it showed on his face. Still, he worried over me, even as his world listed out of orbit.
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“Yeah. Lane, I’m sorry. The way I spoke to you, that day we broke—that day I told you to leave? That was shitty. It’s how I was raised, and it’s not who I want to be. I’m trying to do better. Constantly.”
“It’s okay. I mean, don’t ever do it again, or whatever, but. You know.”
“I won’t. So.” He broke off, coughed out the end of a sigh. “About tonight.”
My eyes found the floor in the silence that followed. I felt tiny in his shirt, awkward and uncertain. Very self-conscious and very dumb, thinking I could somehow swoop in and save him, when we were a matching set of disasters.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have assumed you needed—someone here. Anyone here. Me. If you want me gone, I can text Grey. It’s no problem. I—”
“Stop. I’m glad you stayed. But—I don’t know. I want you here, but if you’re not comfortable—”
“Hey. We don’t have to deal with any of that tonight. I stayed to be here for you, not to drag out all our issues.” I swallowed hard and stepped toward him, slid my hands along his jaw and into his hair. Tilted his face until his eyes found mine. “I just need you to know, okay? I should have said it back.”
My words stole the air between us, turned it to bitter dust. His face fell, even as his arms wound around my hips. Even as he leaned into me, resting his head against my belly.
“God. Please don’t do this. I love you, but I can’t have this talk right now.”
“But I thought you wanted …” I swallowed the lump in my throat, sending the words back down with it as I knelt to his level. “Connor, I’ve been awful and selfish, and I’m so, so sorry. I wish I’d been strong enough to tell you then.”
“It was never about the words. If we’re going to work—really work, not just go back to how we were, semantics is the least of our worries. And after this shit tonight—the cops, my sister, my fucking parents—Lane, I’m a mess. And look at you.” His voice lost its edge, fingertips brushing my cheekbone, tracing the ever-present shadows beneath my eyes, and if I couldn’t put his needs before mine even one single goddamn time, I didn’t deserve him in any capacity. “Neither one of us has the energy.”
“Okay. Later.”
“Thank you.” The relief in his voice was a skittish, living thing, scratching at me with guilt-tipped claws. If he’d laughed in my face, it couldn’t have cut deeper. “Lane, I—”
“It’s fine. Just rest.”
He nodded, too defeated to do anything but pull away. He set his glasses and the triquetra on his worktable, flicked the switch on his lamp, and curled around himself, facing the wall. I pulled the blanket over us both, fit myself against his body, slipped my arms beneath his. Pressed my cheek to his back and whispered my love, silently, into the curve of his shoulder.
Eventually his breathing slowed, and his fingers found mine. My eyes drifted shut, blinked open, shut again with the rise and fall of his chest, until they fell one last time, and for once I didn’t dream. And if we woke in the night, and forgot we no longer had any claim on each other—if we set aside that minor detail for some secret, unspecific stretch of time—well, that was nobody’s business but our own. It certainly didn’t carry over to the morning, when instead of waking him as I used to do by trailing my fingernails along his neck, I slipped from his bed and left him sleeping, with nothing more than a short text.
Gone to work. Let me know if you need me.
P.S. This is Lane.
Or maybe it did carry over. Because even though I didn’t hear a word from him in return that day, not even his usual reassurance that he’d realized it was me without my postscript, my phone buzzed in my bag on Tuesday, with a message that left me slumped against the back wall of the market booth, forehead pressed to my knees, tears running down my face. Everything else swelling loud and desperate and scary behind my ribs.
I do.