I was supposed to sleep on her couch.I ended up on the floor by the door because she finally drifted off and I couldn’t make myself put distance between me and the lock.
I picture that lock now.I hate it for existing.
The drawer lights again.Once.Twice.Then stillness.
Wren inhales like it hurts.The crease between her brows deepens.She closes the drawer without opening it, which somehow says more than reading anything would.She’s past the point of needing content to fill in the threat.The threat is the repetition, the proximity.The certainty.
My throat closes.
“Wren,” I say, and use the quietest voice I own, the one from last night, the one she recognized.“Look at me.”
She does.Immediately.Like her body knows my tone means we’re stepping outside of the rest of the world for a second.
Atlas watches her look at me and some part of me hates that it twists my insides.Not because he doesn’t deserve it.Because I am selfish and tired and scared, and jealousy is easier to feel than raw terror.
“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” I say.“But you also don’t have to white-knuckle it alone.”
The corner of her mouth trembles.She catches it with her teeth.“I’m not alone,” she says, and flicks her gaze toward Atlas and then toward where Kael is pretending to update the drill chart and actually running twelve contingencies in his head.
I nod.“Good answer.”
She doesn’t smile.She does breathe a little deeper.
Kael arrives like a storm no one heard rolling in.He doesn’t raise his voice.He doesn’t need to.
“Practice is over,” he says.“Boys—showers.Wren—office.Five minutes.”
Two sentences, five outcomes.He’s offering privacy and structure.He’s also putting a captain’s arm around a situation without announcing it to the room.
“Kael,” she says, warning and gratitude braided together.
He tips his head.“If you want,” he adds, soft enough only the four of us can hear it.
That phrase—If you want—has shown up in his handwriting and in his mouth more than once lately, and every time it guts me a little because it’s Kael’s version of tenderness.He will not take a step she doesn’t authorize.He will also move an entire team out of her path so she can take it without tripping.
Atlas looks at me.The silent question lands like a puck on my tape: How much do you know?
I hold his stare and give him the truth I can without giving away hers.Enough.
His jaw works.It’s not aimed at me.
“Atlas,” I say, “I’m going to walk her.”
“I’m not leaving,” he answers.
“Didn’t ask you to.”
Kael slides a look between us that says coordinate this like adults, then addresses Wren again.“We’ll clear the hallway.You take your time.”
She nods, fingers flexing once like she’s testing whether they still belong to her.I want to take her hand.I don’t.Last night taught me the difference between wanting and helping.Asking is helping.Assuming is not.
“Do you want me to touch you?”I ask, quiet.
Something in Atlas’s posture unlocks at the question alone.He understands that language; I saw it on him the first time she reached for his wrist in the training room and he looked like someone handed him a live wire and told him it was a gift.
Wren nods.“Yeah.”
I offer my hand palm-up.She slides her fingers over mine and squeezes, not hard, not light, exactly enough.The pressure is steadying for both of us.
