“Well, then I don’t see why I wouldn’t be with Fisher, too.” She tucks her hair behind her ear with those smooth, disastrously gentle hands. “Better that than leaving.”
The image of her on those docks hits me harder than the pain ever could. Her, smelling rot, surrounded by men who’d tear at softness like hers just to see it bleed. I see Baker’s hands on her, and something animal surges up my throat.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“Talon.”
“Rhea,” I warn. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” A faint smile ghosts her lips. It’s not coy, nor manipulative. God, I wish itwere. It would be so much easier then. “I’m not an idiot. I know what I’m choosing.”
I can’t do this.
I really fucking can’t.
“There’s nothing for you to choose here,” I snap. I turn on her too fast. I probably just tore half my stitches open, but I don’t stop. “You want to choose me? Well, I don’t choose you, for fuck’s sake.”
“You don’t mean that,” she says simply.
“Christ, Rhea—” I rake a hand through my hair, pacing two steps and back again like a trapped animal. “Just… leave. You think you know me, but you don’t. You think this—” I gesture between us, sharp and ugly. “—is something worth bleeding for, but it’s not. I’m not worth shit. I wouldn’t tell you that if it wasn't true.”
“I make my own choices.”
Oh, god help me.
“You’re going to regret this,” I mutter, though it’s more to myself than her.
“Then I’ll regret it,” she says. “But I’m staying.”
I turn away before she can see it. The break, the want, the part of me begging her not to stop choosing me…. Before she can read the truth I’ve been drowning beneath:
That I want to take everything she’s offering.
I want to be selfish so badly it scares the hell out of me.
It’s only the last shreds of discipline that drag me toward the door instead of back to her.
I shove my boots on, ignoring the sting in my stitches, and reach for my bloodied jacket.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Work,” I bite out. “Fisher’s got me running something.”
Her mouth parts, like she wants to beg me not to go. But she doesn’t. She just sits there, her back straight, hands resting in her lap like she’s holding herself together.
I almost look back.
Almost.
But I don’t.
I slam the door behind me instead.
“They kick you out of that flat of yours, man?” Baker shouts from the docks, voice cutting over the groan of steel cranes and the slap of water against the hulls. He’s got a cigarette glued under his lip, smoke curling into the morning fog, and that stupid grin plastered across his face I don’t have the patience to entertain.
He knows I wasn’t home last night.
Two options: smile, play it off, keep the mask up… or tell him to fuck off and avoid chewing through my own tongue. I go with the latter, because something tells me if I lean into banter, I’ll end up breaking my stitches till the end by putting my fist into his teeth.
