"Come on," I said finally, guiding him toward his bedroom. "When's the last time you slept?"
"I don't know. I keep seeing her face, hearing what he said to her..." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I wanted him to hit me, Izzy. I wanted him to give me a reason to escalate it, to call security, to do something. I looked him in the eye and told him to do it. And the bastard was too smart."
My heart broke a little more. This gentle, caring man had been willing to take a beating to protect someone, and it still hadn't been enough.
"That's not your fault," I said.
"Isn't it? I'm supposed to help people. I'm supposed to keep them safe. And I couldn't..." His voice broke. "There was nothing I could do. Nothing at all."
I guided him to sit on the edge of his bed, then settled beside him. Without hesitation, I pulled him down with me, positioning him so his head was resting on my chest, my arm around his shoulders. It wasn't sexual — it was pure comfort, the kind of anchor I'd wished for after my own worst calls.
"Sometimes there's nothing you can do," I said quietly, my fingers running through his hair. "Sometimes the system fails, or people make choices we can't understand, or the bad guy is just too smart. It doesn't mean you failed. It means the world is broken in ways that one person can't fix."
He was quiet for a long time, his breathing gradually evening out as the exhaustion finally started to win over the adrenaline and guilt.
"I keep thinking about what's happening to her rightnow," he murmured. "What he's doing to punish her for talking to us."
"I know," I said. "But you planted a seed. You showed her that someone cared, that someone saw what was happening to her. Maybe next time, she'll remember that. Maybe next time, she'll be ready."
"Maybe," he said, but he didn't sound convinced.
I held him closer, feeling his body gradually relax against mine. "You did everything you could, Jimmy. You were willing to take a beating for someone you barely knew. That matters, even if it didn't work out the way you wanted."
He didn't respond, and after a few minutes, I realized his breathing had deepened into sleep. The man who spent his nights taking care of everyone else had finally let someone take care of him.
I lay there holding him, watching the afternoon light filter through his bedroom curtains, and realized something had fundamentally shifted between us. This wasn't about attraction anymore, or the thrill of a new relationship. This was about trust. About seeing each other at our most vulnerable and choosing to stay anyway.
I thought about all the men who'd wanted me to be softer, smaller, more manageable. None of them would have understood this moment — me in my rumpled clothes, holding a man who'd just had his heart broken by his own compassion. They'd have seen weakness where I saw strength, neediness where I saw courage.
But Jimmy had let me see him shattered, and somehow that made me want to protect him even more fiercely than I protected my crew.
He'd trusted me with his pain, and I'd do whatever it took to help him carry it.
Outside, the city moved on with its day, oblivious to the quiet revolution happening in a nurse's bedroom, where twopeople who spent their lives taking care of others had begun to learn to take care of each other.
I pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head and settled in to keep watch while he slept. Whatever came next, we'd face it together.
chapter
sixteen
I woke up slowly,the way you do when your body has finally been allowed to rest after carrying too much for too long. For a moment, I was disoriented — the light was wrong, the shadows unfamiliar. Then I became aware of the warmth beneath me, the steady rise and fall of breath that wasn't my own, of gentle fingers still moving through my hair.
Izzy.
I was lying on her chest, my head tucked into the curve of her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her waist. She was still in her uniform shirt, though it had come untucked from her pants. My own clothes were wrinkled and uncomfortable, but I didn't want to move. I didn't want to break whatever spell had brought us to this moment.
"Hey," she said quietly, and I realized she'd been awake, probably for a while.
"Hey." My voice came out rough with sleep. "How long was I out?"
"A few hours. It's almost seven."
7 p.m. I'd slept through the afternoon, something I never did. But then again, I'd never had someone hold me while I fell apart, either.
I started to pull away, suddenly self-conscious. "I should — "
"Should what?" Her arm tightened around me, keeping me close. "You needed sleep. I needed to make sure you were okay."
