Envy lays in the yard, her insides spread around like maybe Hatley was showing Em how to change the oil or check the carburetor, and got distracted.
Was that there yesterday?
It warms something in my gut to know the two of them get along so well. That my best friend would show up when I needed him to, and that Em lets him.
There’s a small smile on my lips that fades fast.
Did he fall back to sleep?
“Emmett? Come lemme in,” I say softly. I don’t wanna scare him.
It’s early still, and normally I’m the last one left at the firehouse. But since Emmett… I tend to be the first one out.
By the time the first half of my shift winds down, I find myself missing him way too much. When that final hour rolls around? I’m officially unbearable. Every. Single. Morning.
But after last night?
It was like that first one I brought him home all over again.
Grumbling when the bag slides down my forearm, scraping over the bruises I desperately ignore, I snatch the welcome mat back in search of the extra key.
It’s not there.
My gut turns violently.
What the fuck?
The hackles on my neck rise.
Did he take it?
A haze of something eerie falls over the porch just like that first night I stepped foot on it, and I dump the bags on the fading boards.
He would have told me. He would have said not to come back if that’s what he wanted.
Right?
I lick my lips and will my racing heart to slow.
I trust him. I trust him to tell me.
He showed me … he was vulnerable with me. He wouldn’t just hang me out to dry.
Right?
The ground feels like it’s going to fall out from under me when I flip the mat back and step around the side of the house through the missing railing.
Too familiar, the silence presses in on me, and I rub at the ache growing in my chest.
The bathroom window is right next to his room, the pane still covered in what I now know is dark paint of some kind that still sets me on edge when I come up next to it.
Maybe if I knock, it’ll wake him up.
My raised hand freezes midair at the sound of rustling on the other side. Shuffling.Grumbling.
The water is running.
I swallow hard.
