“I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending this is fine,” I whispered. “That we’re fine.”
For the smallest moment, something flickered in his eyes.
Pain, maybe. Guilt?
And then it was gone, swallowed up by the same emptiness that had walked in with him. The shadows he cast consumed him.
He turned away from me, dragging a hand over his face. “Drop it, Xanthy.”
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. I hated him for shutting me out. “You come back coated in blood every night now and want me just to say ‘Yeah, great job. Sleep well.’ I’m not that person, Shiloh.”
I hated myself more for wanting to follow him into whatever darkness he was hiding just to get a glimpse of the light he once showed me. The warmth I craved to have again.
I stepped closer.
“Shiloh, look at me.” My voice was firmer now, like I was trying to carve through the ice around him. My hands reached for his shoulders, just enough to make contact, and I felt him tense under my fingertips.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. He just stood there, rigid as stone. The touch itself was a reminder of the pieces of him he’d left behind somewhere in the woods.
“You’re not okay,” I said softly, almost pleading. “I can feel it. Every hunt you come back from, every time you breathe—you’re not okay.”
“I said drop it,” he mumbled. His words weren’t loud, but they carried weight.
A threat, a warning. Maybe an exhausted plea?
“I can’t drop it,” I whispered, my forehead almost touching his chest now, trying to pry off the sticky, bloody clothing and lead him toward the bathroom, like he did for me a year ago. “I can’t just pretend you’re fine when I know you’re not. And I can’t pretend like I don’t see it every time you walk in from the woods looking like…” I swallowed hard, trying to find the words as he followed me to the bathroom. “Like you’re carrying something dead on your shoulders.”
The words hit harder than I expected, and when I helped him in the shower, I saw it—the soft flicker in his eyes. I saw him crack. The wild, dark gaze flashed with something fragile.
His guilt. All the grief. His rage and so much pain.
My empathic heart felt it all. Every emotion tore through me like fire, like it was my own.
“I—” he started, then stopped. Head dropping, shoulders slumping, as if the weight of whatever he was holding had doubled and he couldn’t carry it anymore.
“No,” I told him, turning on the warm spray of the water and getting into the shower with him.
“You don’t have to talk about it. So, just give me silence, and let me care for you if you can’t give me the truth I want to hear.”
Shiloh opened his mouth and closed it again and again.
“I’m…sorry,” he said finally, and his mouth closed again.
I tried to keep from sighing, happy that at least he wasn’t intent on lying again. He finally let me strip the bloody clothes off him, let me scrub the grime, dirt, and decay from his skin.
He watched me, admired my naked body, but didn’t touch me, just let me do what I needed to. It was almost like how I’d cared for my idiot brother. I loved him. But that love was something I just didn’t understand anymore.
When I finished sudsing him down, I felt a spark of bravery and went with it.
I forced the words out. “The wedding, don’t push me away from that, too. I need you there. I need you with me. Don’t make me stand there without you. You owe me that, Shiloh Anderson.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. He didn’t respond, not with words. His dick bobbed and pressed into my chest. He didn’t even shift. His breathing was uneven and shallow, like he was in pain.
“Shiloh, please.” I gripped his arms tighter. “I can’t do this alone. Not if you’re not in it with me. Are we still a team?”
He finally lifted his head to me, his stormy eyes meeting mine, and for a heartbeat, the walls he built around himself seemed thinner, fading away with the soap and the water. I thought I saw him tremble and sigh.
But then he stepped back, and the fragility dissipated like the steam.
