I move past him, hyperaware of every sound—the creak of the floorboards, the clink of glass as I pour. My hands shake a little, but I pretend not to notice.
The first sip burns, hard and clean.
“Guess we both had the same idea,” I murmur as I face him.
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he studies me over the rim of his glass. “Nightmares?”
I nod. “It’s like I close my eyes and I’m right back there.”
“It never really leaves you. You just learn to live around it.”
The fire pops, scattering sparks. He sets his glass down, leaning back against the couch, the picture of control even now except for his eyes. They’re tired. Haunted, even.
“I keep thinking I could’ve done something different,” I say, my voice breaking despite me. “That maybe if I’d moved faster or shouted louder?—”
“You couldn’t have saved her.” His voice cuts through my guilt before it can spiral. “Don’t carry my burden, Miss Miller.”
I look at him, at the man who hasn’t slept, hasn’t cracked or broken—not in public, anyway. “Maybe you should let someone carry it with you.”
For a moment, the silence between us hums with something I can’t name.
Then he says, almost to himself, “You sound like her.”
My throat tightens. “Sienna?”
He nods once, staring into the fire. “She never let me brood. Always had to remind me I was still human.”
The quiet stretches. I take another drink, feeling it slide warm and heavy through my veins.
“Do you ever wish you could go back?” I ask softly.
His gaze lifts to mine, steady and unflinching. “Every damn day.”
I can’t look away. Not from the grief in his face, not from the exhaustion in his eyes, not from the flicker of something dangerous threading through the air between us.
I set my glass down. “You should try to sleep.”
“You should, too.”
“I can’t.”
He studies me for a long moment before saying quietly, “Then stay.”
My pulse skips. “Here?”
He nods toward the couch beside him. “Just until you can.”
I hesitate for a moment before sitting. The heat from the fire wraps around us, the silence softer now. And for the first time in days, I don’t feel completely alone.
“Tell me about her,” he says after a while. “What did she like to do in Kansas City?”
I think for a moment.
“She liked to go line dancing on the weekend,” I say with a smile. “I always teased her that she had a thing for cowboys.”
Without thinking, I rub the spot over my heart that hurts.
“I keep thinking I should text our friends but I don’t know what to say.”
