I press my hands to my face, still laughing weakly. “I know that,” I say. “I just wasn’t thinking aboutthat.”
She smirks faintly. “Well, now you are.”
I roll my eyes, sliding off the bed with a soft shake of my head. “I’m gonna go check on breakfast. You coming?”
“I will in a little bit. Just save me a plate.”
I nod and kiss the top of her head before sliding off the bed. “You got it.”
“Thanks,” she whispers, curling back under her comforter as I slip out.
After breakfast, Emilio and I end up tangled together on the couch, the apartment swallowed in an uneasy quiet. The TV hums in the background, some sitcom rerun flashing across the screen, its canned laughter and snappy dialogue bouncing uselessly around the room. Neither of us is watching. My head rests against his chest, the steady thud of his heartbeat syncing with the slow rhythm of his breathing. That sound—the rise and fall, steady and certain—is the only thing keeping me tethered. His arm is wrapped around me, heavy and warm, his thumb absentmindedly drawing slow lines along the skin of my arm. It’s grounding, and I cling to it more than I want to admit.
The soft slap of Tessa’s panda slippers drifts out of the hallway. She shuffles into the kitchen, her hair wild, and her eyes still heavy with sleep. She doesn’t speak, just gives me a faint, worn smile before tugging open the microwave. She pops in the plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes I left waiting for her, the light buzzing faintly as the food spins in slow circles. When it beeps, she pulls the plate out, grabs a fork from the dish rack, and pads back to her room without a word, shutting the door behind her, cutting us off again.
I don’t know how much time passes before Emilio’s voice cuts through the quiet. It’s low, careful, almost hesitant.
“Tell me about Khloe,” he says softly. “How did you two become friends?”
The name squeezes my chest. I shift against him, the words sticking before they can form. His thumb is still brushing over my arm, patient, waiting, and finally, I let out a breath.
“I met her not long after I moved in with Tessa’s family,” I say slowly, each word dragging. “I was still… figuring out how to breathe again, I guess. Everything in my life then was upside down, raw and jagged, and then there she was—loud, unfiltered, the kind of girl who refused to let anyone sit on the sidelines. She had been this burst of sunlight I didn’t expect. She didn’t treat me like I was broken or fragile; neither did Tessa. Those two made living possible again.”
A tiny smile tugs at my lips before it falters. “From then on, it was always the three of us: me, Tessa, and Khloe. We stuck together like glue. Middle school, high school, college—we went through everything together. First crushes, heartbreaks, skipping class, sneaking into movies. Khloe was there for all of it.” My throat tightens, but I keep going, because stopping feels worse. “She wasn’t just a friend. She was family in every sense but blood, like Tessa.”
Emilio doesn’t say anything right away, just lets the silence stretch. His chest rises beneath my cheek, steady, constant. Then he presses a kiss into my hair, murmuring, “I’m glad you had her.”
The ache in my chest doubles. My eyes sting, and I press my face harder against him.
For a while, the silence stretches thin between Emilio and me, only broken by the flicker of the television fading into nothing. I feel like I’m sinking deeper into him, exhaustion winning its quiet battle. My eyes slip shut, my body lulled by his warmth, the soft drag of his thumb across my arm, the rhythm of his breathing beneath my cheek.
At some point, I must drift. The next thing I feel is Emilio shifting beneath me, slow and careful, as though he’s trying not to wake me. His hands slide around my waist, gentle, coaxing me off his lap. My lashes flutter, a quiet panic sparking in my chestas my fingers curl into his shirt, holding tighter, like I can anchor him here if I just don’t let go.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I murmur, my voice hoarse with sleep. My chest aches at the thought of him walking out the door, leaving me behind in this too-quiet apartment.
Maybe if I hold on tighter, he’ll stay. There are plenty of cops to cover him, right?
“I know, baby.” His voice is low, warm, his breath brushing against my ear as he leans down to kiss me. The kiss is soft, lingering, almost reverent, and it nearly undoes me all over again. “I’ll come check on you tonight, okay?”
I force myself to let go, my lips tugging into a pout I can’t stop. He rises, stretching just slightly, before making his way toward the door. He pauses to crouch down and scratch Max behind the ears. His tail thumps a steady beat against the floor, and his eyes close with contentment.
Emilio glances back at me before leaving. His expression shifts, tightening into that firm, protective look I’ve come to know too well—the one that says he’s already running through a dozen worst-case scenarios in his head. “Anything happens, call me. Got it?”
I nod, my throat too tight to speak.
He watches me a moment longer, then the sternness in his face softens just enough. The corners of his lips twitch upward, and the words slip from him in a low rasp, deliberate, sure. “Good girl.”
The phrase lands in me like a spark to dry tinder. My body reacts before my brain has the chance to catch up, a shiver rolling through me, heat flooding beneath my skin despite the grief that weighs on me like a second body. The words echo in my head, clinging, twisting, sending my thoughts down a path I shouldn’t be wandering.
The door clicks shut behind him, leaving me alone with the apartment’s stillness, staring at the empty space where he stood moments ago, my heart racing for reasons that have nothing to do with panic.
I press my palms to my face, dragging in a shaky breath. My thoughts circle back to Khloe, unbidden, sharp. The way she would have teased me right now, her grin wicked, her voice bright with laughter. Tessa was right earlier—Khloe always said grief made people do strange things, made them reach for the living in desperate ways. She would have laughed at the idea of “sad sex,” and yet the thought doesn’t feel as far-fetched as it should.
TWENTY
RAELYNN
All day,Marlena, Tessa, and I huddled on the living room floor, knees tucked beneath us in a tangled fortress of blankets, surrounded by mountains of crumpled tissues and mugs of tea, abandoned half-empty, their steam long since vanished into the heavy air. Grief weighed down the room like a storm cloud that refused to break. We cried until our eyes stung and swelled, until our throats turned raw and our ribs ached with every shaky inhale. And then, in fragile gasps between sobs, came laughter—jagged, unexpected, almost guilty. We stitched Khloe back together from scraps of memory: her snorting laugh that filled every space, the way she stole fries with shameless glee, the dramatic hand gestures she used when telling even the smallest story.
