He just follows—silent, tense, wrecked—like he doesn’t trust himself near anyone else. Like I’m the only anchor he has left in a world that keeps tilting underneath him.
People part as we move through the crowd—like he’s still volatile, still sparking, still moments away from detonating again.
I drag him down the corridor and into the staff room, slam the door behind us, lock it.
The silence is thick.
Charged.
Buzzing with everything we didn’t say in that club.
My hands shake as I reach for the first aid kit on the shelf. His blood smears across my fingertips like a reminder of everything he is and everything he ruins.
He sinks into the worn leather couch like it’s the first soft thing he’s touched in weeks.
Eyes dark.
Shoulders rigid.
A man at war with himself.
Ashamed—but not sorry.
Never sorry.
“You’re lucky security didn’t throw you out,” I mutter, kneeling in front of him.
He doesn’t answer.
Just watches me.
Watches how I open the antiseptic, how I wrap the gauze, how I press it to his skin with careful, shaking hands.
“Why’d you come here, Dax?” I ask quietly. “Was it to start a fight? Or was it just to break me again?”
“I came here to drink.”
His jaw clenches.
“Didn’t know you’d be wrapped around another man.”
“I wasn’t wrapped around him.”
“He was three seconds away from having your tongue down his throat.”
“So what if he was?” I snap, meeting his gaze. “You made it clear I was a fucking mistake, remember?”
His silence is a confession.
Because he remembers.
He remembers every single word.
“Thought you were a hallucination that night,” he says, voice rough. “Didn’t know you were real until it was too late.”
“And now?” I whisper.
He looks at his hand.
