“What then?”
I think about what we failed at and what we’re trying to learn.“Static,” I say.“If the noise takes over, we say static.”
“Static,” he repeats, testing it on his tongue.“What about five rules?”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
“Humor me.”
“Five: we touch when we ask and when we get a yes.Not because we’re starving.Because we’re choosing.”
His fingers pause on my hair.“Yes.”
We don’t sayI love you.We don’t need to use it tonight.
He shifts and I move with him, a small recalibration that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trying to sleep without flinching.“Tell me about the songs you played to bring her back,” he says, like he wants proof of the hours I kept.
“The door one,” I say.“The lullaby.The one I wrote for Arlo ...plus a bunch of new things to distract her.”He groans, and I grin into his thigh.
“What about while you were with her in the main bedroom?”
“She asked for no music at first, then changed her mind.I played a few of her favorite songs, and then some I’m working on ...We ate.Twice.She called me out when I started to narrate the world for her.‘I can do it on my own,’ she said.So, I shut up.”
“Good,” he murmurs.“Teach me how to shut up.”
“You’re learning,” I say, and he is.He didn’t call the pilot.He didn’t sprint into the trees.He didn’t turn our day into a rescue he could brag about later.He stayed put and asked me to stay.
Silence grows—a quiet, not the kind that eats you.His hand finds the back of my neck and just rests there.I close my eyes and count to eight, then sixteen, not because I’m about to jump off a cliff inside my head but because measuring something that isn’t pain feels good.
“I keep seeing him,” he says after a while.“Dorian.In that lobby.The thought of him touching her with that voice, that smile—” He stops before the words become something that bites.
“You shouldn’t have watched the videos.”I fucking warned him.
When Arthur Bradley offered to help him rescue Cleo, they brought on board his son, who hacked into Dorian’s system.They had access to all his cameras and saw what was happening to Cleo.Hence, they sped up the rescue as much as they could.Also ...they showed some of the video to Eddie.
I don’t think he’s ever going to survive that.
“I know.”He bobs his head.
“Static,” he says, just to try the word out loud.It sits between us and doesn’t demand anything.
“You can sleep,” I tell him.“I’ll take first watch.”I don’t mean guard duty.I mean, if the memories and bad dreams show up for him, I’ll tell them to fuck off.
He snorts softly.“We’re not trading watches over each other like a campout.”
“We’re allowed to be ridiculous,” I say.“It beats being tragic.”
He taps two fingers against my shoulder in a rhythm I recognize from when we were stupid and new.“Trade me at two,” he says.
“Deal.”
Minutes pass.The house settles into night-sounds.Somewhere downstairs, there’s a click.
“I’m glad you kissed me,” Eddie says, a whisper that might be for me or for the ceiling.“It felt like we were on the same team.”
“We are,” I say.“We keep forgetting, but we are.”
He presses his mouth to my forehead.It’s a touch without hunger, a benediction he doesn’t believe he’s allowed to give.I let it land.I don’t chase it.We’re learning.
