He laughs properly at that, the sound lighting up the room.
For a while, we just lie there, facing each other. His eyes flicker closed and open again, sleep tugging at him but not winning yet. I want to tell him I’m proud of him—for surviving, for talking, for existing despite it all—but the words stick somewhere in my throat.
Somewhere inside that wish, my own ghosts stir: Mum humming at the sink, Dad coughing through the night, Guy’s hand in mine. They’re not gone, not really. They just live in the spaces between breaths.
Pete looks at his watch. “I need to go soon.”
I nod.
Pete shifts closer, his hand finding mine again. “Thanks,” he mumbles. “For… letting me be.”
“Always,” I say.
He smiles against the pillow, us both enjoying the calm.
Part of me wants to protect this quiet forever. Another part knows it can’t last.
But for now, I let myself believe it can.
Chapter 47
SAM
Sam has had the feed up all afternoon
The laptop is propped up on the kitchen island like he’s about to live-stream a cook-along. Four camera windows: hallway, living room, study, bedroom. Live and exclusive from Tom’s house.
He wasn’t all that interested in the sex. Sweet, neat, barely a whisper above vanilla. The kind of thing you could put to a Coldplay soundtrack.
What catches him is theafter—the stillness, the way bodies keep talking once words are gone. Pete turns onto his side, palm open in that over-sharing way of his, eyes alive even in exhaustion. Tom listening with an almost devotional focus.
Sam leans closer, elbows on the counter. There’s no sound in the feed, but he doesn’t need it. He reads posture like other people read subtitles. It’s almost hypnotic, watching them: two ghosts bathed in afternoon light, breathing in sync, unaware they’ve become a study in tenderness.
He’s still watching when a voice snaps through the quiet.
“What the fuck is this?”
James.
Sam doesn’t startle—well, not outwardly. He snaps the laptop half-closed and turns. James stands there in gym clothes, damp hair slicked back, eyes sharp enough to cut marble.
“Keeping an eye on things,” Sam says lightly.
James’s jaw tightens. “They’re still together.”
“Looks that way,” Sam says, tone airy.
“He’s trying to get rid of me,” James mutters. “He’s planning something.”
“Paranoid is a colour on you,” Sam says, hoping humour will ground him. Sometimes it does.
“I know he’s up to something!”
For a heartbeat, it feels like calm might win. Then James grabs the nearest glass and hurls it across the room. It shatters beautifully—an explosion of light and sound that makes Sam’s pulse jump.
James storms out, door slamming behind him.
“Fantastic,” Sam mutters. “Love that for my bare feet.” He exhales and re-opens the laptop. Pete’s now getting dressed, pulling on jeans, reaching for a shirt that’s clearly Tom’s. He leans down, kisses Tom—quick, soft, final—and walks out of frame. Tom stays lying there, hand pressed flat to his stomach like he’s holding himself together.
