I roll my eyes, then pull the blanket tighter and look straight into the fire. “I was thinking about home,” I say. “About… afterward. If we get one.”
“If?” he echoes, a quiet warning.
“When,” I correct, because I know he needs me to. “When we get one.”
His fingers find the edge of the blanket where it pools on the rug. He fiddles with the fringe, like he’s trying not to spook me. “And?” he prompts.
“And I was…” I swallow. “I was wondering what happens when we go back. To, you know. Real life. Gage. The apartment. Work.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly. “You’re worried things will go back to exactly how they were.”
The idea makes my chest hurt.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Except, no, not really, because theycan’t. I don’t… I don’t think I can go back to pretending you’re just my brother’s best friend and ignores my crush like it’s his full-time job.”
He winces. “Ouch. Brutal but fair.”
“And I don’t want to,” I blur out before I lose my nerve. “I don’t want to go back to that. I want… this. You. All the way. Outside of murder cabins. Outside of trauma.”
My voice wobbles on the last word.
I hate that.
Knight stills.
The fire snaps in the silence.
“You’re talking about a real relationship,” he says softly. “Not just… safe house logic.”
I stare at my hands, at the mug, at the tiny chips in the ceramic.
“I’ve wanted a real relationship with you since I figured out what my feelings were,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “When I was a kid, it was a crush. A… ‘you’re cool and older and broody and you smell good’ situation.”
He snorts.
I keep going.
“But I didn’t…knowyou then the way I do now. I didn’t know about your dad, or the stuff you did to survive, or how hard you’ve been trying to aim yourself at better targets. I didn’t know the way you look at people when you’re worried they’re going to break and you’re pretending you’re not worried. I didn’t knowthat under all the sarcasm and code and hoodie, you’re just this huge, ridiculous heart with a firewall.”
My throat tightens.
“Now I know,” I say. “And I still… want you. More. Not less. And if we go home and you decide this was just a bunker fluke, I’m going to?—”
“Stop,” he says, sharp enough that I do.
I glance over.
His eyes are darker now, jaw clenched like he’s holding something back.
“This is not a bunker fluke,” he says, enunciating each word. “This isn’t some weird trauma bond I’m going to regret when we get back to soggy takeout and your brother yelling at the game.”
“You sure?” I ask, because I have to. “Because I am a lot. In enclosed spaces, especially.”
“Youarea lot,” he says. “That’s one of the first things I loved about you.”
The word hits me like a physical thing.
I suck in a breath.
