Heat skated up my spine.
We stepped off the porch together. I walked to Gracie’s grave, kneeling gently, brushing my fingers over the fresh flowers Peter and Dane had placed earlier.
“Goodnight, baby,” I whispered. “Mummy’s okay. Truly.”
When I turned, Dane was waiting at the porch steps, hands in his pockets, quiet, warm, steady. Exactly where I needed him.
We flicked off the lights. Walked through the soft-dark of the house. Entered my bedroom like we were crossing into something sacred.
He climbed into the bed first, lifting the covers for me. I slid in beside him; the sheets cool compared to the heat of his body. He wrapped one arm under my shoulders, the other around my waist, pulling me into the curve of him like I belonged there.
Maybe I did.
“Sleep, Peach,” he whispered into my hair.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone when I closed my eyes.
Dawn poured itself across the room in soft strokes, touching the sheets, the wooden floorboards, the curve of Dane’s back. He lay on his stomach beside me, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, the other draped over my waist like I might disappear if he loosened his hold.
I’d been awake for five quiet minutes, watching the way the morning light gathered in the ink of his tattoos. They shifted with each slow breath he took; a living tapestry carved across the terrain of him. My fingers hovered above the closest one, a line of script that curled along the inside of his forearm, the flourished letters warm against his skin.
He stirred when I finally touched him, a low hum vibrating in his chest.
“Peach,” he murmured, voice rough from sleep.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He turned his head toward me. His eyes were heavy, impossibly soft. When he smiled, it was small and slow, like sunlight warming stone.
“What are you staring at?” he asked.
“You.”
“Good.” His hand slid higher up my thigh, thumb brushing skin still tender from last night. “I’m yours to stare at.”
Heat unfurled low in my belly.
But instead of giving in to the gravity of him, I traced the tattoo again. “What does this one say?”
He shifted onto his side so he could see where my fingers moved. “That one?” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “It says light up the darkness.”
“In Italian,” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It was my nana’s favorite thing to say to me,” he said. “She’d kiss my forehead and say it every night. Even when things were… rough.”
I traced the script again, slower. “You have more from her.”
“Most of them.” His voice softened, dipped. “She saved me in more ways than one.”
My hand drifted across his arm, following the scattered lines of tiny quotes, dates, symbols. All of it capturing a life he’d fought through. All of it inked into the skin I’d kissed last night like I’d been memorising a map I’d known forever without realising it.
“What does this one mean?” I asked, touching a delicate row of dots.
“Morse code,” he said. “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
