I grunt, then toss the broken pen into the trash.I should have closed my damn door.East gives me a look but doesn’t push. He knows when to let me be.
James doesn’t. I hear him before I see him—boots soft on the hardwood, slower than usual. Measured. Intentional. He leans against the door jamb, arms crossed over his chest, eyes sharp. Quiet authority in every line of his body.
“You sleep last night?” he asks casually.
I don’t answer.
His gaze drops to the paperwork in front of me, then to my clenched fists. “Where’s Candace?”
That lands hard. My jaw ticks. East and Frankie exchange looks, then get up and leave without a word.
James doesn’t need an answer. He straightens slowly, nodding to himself. “Ah.”
“Don’t,” I mutter.
“Don’t what?” he asks softly. “Notice the silence? The fact that you’ve been pretending to read the same page for the last ten minutes? The way your shoulders lock up every time the club door opens?”
My glare cuts toward him, but he’s not fazed. He never is.
“You’re bleeding around the edges, son,” he says, voice rough with gravel and warmth all at once. “And not the kind anyone can stitch.”
“I’m fine.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle. “Sure you are. That why your hands are shaking?”
I glance down.Damn it. They are.I clench them into fists andshove them under the table. My palms sting where my nails dug in too deep.
James waits a beat. Then, in a gentler tone: “What happened?”
I shake my head once. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” he says, “if she left looking wrecked from whatever she was running from. And you stayed behind looking wrecked from being the reason.”
That hits too close to home. I stand abruptly, shoving the paperwork aside. “I’ve got shit to do.”
“You’ve got a heart to reckon with,” he counters. “And no task list’s gonna fix that.”
I pace a few steps, then stop, hands on my hips, head bowed. My breath saws in and out, uneven. No air left in the room.
“She said it was just sex,” I mutter. “Said she still hates me.”
James watches me quietly. “Did she mean it?”
I hesitate. “She wanted it,” I say, voice rough. “Hell, she needed it. But the second it was over, she was gone. Like letting me hold her meant she’d betrayed herself.”
He nods slowly. “Because it did. To her.”
“She said not to touch her like I care,” I whisper. “Like that was worse than anything else I could’ve done.”
James walks closer, hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t break her, Malachi. You just touched a part of her no one’s ever handled with care. That kind of tenderness? It’s terrifying to someone who’s only ever known survival.”
I swallow hard. “What do I do?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
He squeezes my shoulder. “Be the man who doesn’t run when she does. Let her come to you. And when she does? Don’t try to fix her pain. Just sit in it with her.”
I close my eyes. Breathe. Try not to remember the way she looked back at me before she bolted. But I do. And it wrecks me all over again.
A single lyric flickers to life in the back of my skull. SomethingI swear I’ve heard her whisper once when she thought I was asleep.Don’t fall. Don’t break. Don’t stay.
