As the credits rolled on the movie neither of us had watched, Jimmy's phone buzzed with a work notification. He glanced at it and sighed.
"I should probably head home," he said. "Early shift tonight, and I want to get some actual sleep."
"Of course," I said, even though he'd slept here plenty oftimes before early shifts. Another small distance, another careful boundary that hadn't existed a week ago.
He kissed me goodbye at the door, soft and sweet and just a little too brief. "I love you," he said, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
"I love you too," I replied, and meant it completely.
He stepped back, reaching for his keys, and something desperate clawed at my chest. The careful distance, the unspoken tension, the way we'd been dancing around each other for days — I couldn't let him leave like this. Not when it felt like we were slipping away from each other one polite goodbye at a time.
"Jimmy, wait." The words came out more breathless than I'd intended.
He turned back, concern flickering in his green eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just..." I swallowed hard, my pride warring with my desperation. "You could stay. It's been a while since we had a morning together."
The words hung between us, and I saw the exact moment he understood what I was really asking. Not for sex, exactly, but for connection. For proof that we were still us, that whatever had shifted between us could be fixed with closeness, with skin against skin and the familiar rhythm of bodies that knew each other.
Something broke in his expression — not rejection, but something that looked almost like pain.
"Okay," he said quietly, stepping back inside and closing the door behind him. "Okay, I'll stay."
Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by shame. When had I become the kind of woman who had to ask? When had Jimmy become someone who looked like staying the night was an act of charity rather than something he wanted?
We moved through my apartment with careful quiet, theeasy domesticity we'd once shared now feeling fragile and forced. In my bedroom, we undressed without words, without the playful teasing that usually accompanied this ritual. Jimmy's hands were gentle as he helped me out of my shirt, but there was a reverence to his touch that felt more like goodbye than hello.
We slipped under the covers, and Jimmy pulled me against his chest, my back to his front, his arm solid and warm around my waist. It was intimate without being sexual, close without being passionate. Just two people holding onto each other in the dark.
"Thank you," I whispered, though I wasn't entirely sure what I was thanking him for.
"Shh," he murmured against my hair. "Just sleep, beautiful. Just sleep."
But sleep didn't come easily. I lay there listening to Jimmy's breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against my back, and wondered when holding the person I loved had started to feel like holding onto something that was already slipping away.
Behind me, Jimmy's breathing never settled into the deep rhythm of sleep. We lay there, skin against skin, closer than we'd been in days but somehow further apart than ever.
chapter
twenty-eight
I layin Izzy's bed, my arm around her sleeping form, and felt like the biggest fraud who'd ever drawn breath.
Her back was pressed against my chest, her breathing finally deep and even after what felt like hours of restless shifting. The digital clock on her nightstand glowed 4:23 a.m. in harsh red numbers, mocking me. I'd been awake for every single minute since we'd climbed into bed, my mind a relentless cycle of self-recrimination and terror.
She'd asked me to stay. Not demanded, not manipulated — just asked, with a vulnerability in her voice that had nearly brought me to my knees. And I'd said yes because I was too much of a coward to face what saying no would mean. Too selfish to give her the space she deserved to find someone who could actually give her what she wanted.
You could stay. It's been a while since we had a morning together.
The careful way she'd phrased it, the hope hidden beneath the casual words — Christ, it had broken something inside me. She was trying so hard to bridge the gap that had opened between us, and all I could do was lie here like a corpse, pretending to sleep while my chest felt like it was caving in.
She would have said yes to anything tonight. If I'd pushed,if I'd taken what she was offering instead of just holding her, she would have given me her body even while her heart was breaking. The thought made me sick. The strongest, most self-possessed woman I'd ever known had been willing to use sex as a bridge across the chasm I'd created, and I was such a failure that she'd felt like she had to.
I thought about what Izzy had told me about the Amelia Patterson call, the way her voice had broken when she'd described how the little girl had looked at her. "She trusted me completely, Jimmy. This seven-year-old who'd just lost everything, and she looked at me like I could fix the whole world." The wonder and pain in Izzy's voice when she'd said it, the way she'd realized in that moment what she wanted for her future.
She was going to be the most incredible mother someday. Any child would be lucky beyond measure to have her love, her protection, her fierce loyalty.
And I was the bastard who was going to rob her of that future because I was too broken to be what she needed.
