Her thumb strokes my bruised knuckles once?—
—and color drains out of her face so fast I feel the room tilt.
“Riley?” My voice is too loud in the soft room. Her pupils flare, focus slipping like a camera trying to find a subject in low light.
“I—” She swallows. One hand flies to her stomach, palm pressing just below her ribs like she can hold something steady from the outside. “I need a minute,” she whispers, already standing.
The blanket slides off her lap, a slow wave onto the floor. I’m up without meaning to be, hands half-raised like I’m spotting a lifter. She shakes her head—don’t—and I freeze. We said space. I don’t know what kind of help she needs. I’m suddenly terrified of choosing wrong.
The hallway is eight steps; it looks like a mile. She takes two brisk and sure, the third shorter, the fourth a misstep that kisses the baseboard with her sock. A small sound scrapes out of her, like breath dragged over sand. The metronome I built from her hand on mine shatters.
“Easy,” I say—to her, to me, I don’t know. “Hey—Riley.”
She doesn’t look back. The bathroom light flips on—bright, clinical, punching a white square into our dim room. She palms the doorframe like the bench after a dizzy skate. Her other hand stays at her belly, fingers spread, protective without permission.
Everything not important falls out of my head. The game, the fines, the headlines—they drop clean away. What’s left is heat under my ribs that isn’t anger anymore; it’s older and meaner and wants to carry.
“I’m fine,” she says through a breath that isn’t. “I just—give me a minute.”
I stop two steps short of the light, like there’s a line taped on the floor I’m not allowed to cross. “I’m right here.” My heart is a fist in my throat. “Tell me what you need.”
She nods, small and fierce, and disappears into the white. The door doesn’t slam; it clicks, polite as a doctor’s pen. The fan hums up a soothing lie. I stand in the not-quite hallway with my hands useless and listen to the sounds I can and can’t hear.
Water runs. Stops. The fan drones. My breath gets too loud; I clamp my teeth, taste blood, unclamp—because clamping never fixed anything and my body is a slow learner.
The badge scanner’s red light. The way she went quiet over coffee. The envelope in her locker I don’t know about but somehow do, because nights like this don’t travel alone. Dots connect without permission into a shape that makes my knees feel hollow.
“Riley?” I try again, softer, knuckles skimming paint without knocking. “Talk to me.”
A beat. Another. Silence with content.
Then a small, raw sound breaks it—guttural, undeniable—and the edge of the world goes thin.
The lock turns. The door stays closed.
My heartbeat spikes so hard I have to put a palm to the wall to stay upright.
Chapter 19
Secrets in the Shadows
Riley
The room is a dark aquarium,city lights streaking the windows like schools of neon fish. Rain needles the glass with the persistence of a metronome. The bathroom fan clicks off, leaving my pulse too loud in my ears.
I stand in the doorway, one hand flat to the cool frame, and watch him in the bedroom. Jason sits on the edge of the mattress in a T-shirt and sweats, elbows on his knees, head bowed like he’s listening to something only he can hear. The lamp throws a soft amber circle that doesn’t quite reach the corners. In the half-light, he looks less like the storm the world thinks he is and more like its eye.
Fear is a quick change artist. In the space where panic lived ten minutes ago, something warmer unfurls—greedy and gentle at the same time. It isn’t an answer to any of the questions waiting at seven a.m., but it’s a truth I trust: my body knows the way to his like a path in the dark.
He looks up when I move, eyes finding me as if the room is full of light. “Hey,” he says, small and careful.
“Hey,” I echo, because anything bigger will break me open. The rain has stitched a seam down my spine; it loosens when I step closer.
“I can sleep on the couch,” he offers, predictably bad at pretending distance doesn’t hurt. “If you want?—”
“I don’t,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. The sound of it surprises me enough to make me brave. I cross the last few feet and the mattress dips as I climb onto it—not tentative, not coy, just choosing. The sheets are cool; his heat is not. I fit my knees around his hips and settle, a question asked in the weight of me.
He goes very still, like a man waiting for the count before a faceoff. His hands hover at my thighs, not touching until I guide them there.
