The gratitude in his voice did something reckless to me.
Because he wasn’t pushing me away right now.
He wasn’t shutting down.
He was receiving.
I felt the tiniest flicker of triumph—and fear—because if he could receive this, then maybe he could receive the other thing I was here to give him.
My love.
Wyatt kept the box in his hands a moment longer before closing it carefully.
Then he looked at me like he’d made a decision.
“I have something for you,” he said.
My breath caught. “You do?”
He nodded, and his mouth twitched with something almost … nervous.
He reached into the inside pocket of his sportcoat and pulled out a small wrapped package—neat, careful, like he’d wrappedit himself or watched someone do it with the concentration of a man disarming a bomb.
He set it on the table between us.
“I—I didn’t know if this would be too much,” he said, voice low. “But after yesterday … after what you said about Jonesy …”
My fingers went cold.
My heart did that thing where it stutters, like it’s trying to brace.
I reached for it slowly, the paper suddenly too loud in my hands.
Wyatt watched me, eyes steady, but his posture was tense—like he was prepared for me to break.
I unwrapped it.
The frame was small. Dark wood. Simple.
And then I saw it.
A photograph.
Old enough that the colors had faded slightly, the edges soft, like the picture had lived a life before it found its way back to me.
Three kids.
Me in the middle, sunburned and grinning like the world was safe. Wyatt on one side, taller even then, hair longer, an arm slung around my shoulders like I belonged there. And on my other side?—
Jonesy.
Five years younger, all teeth and freckles and wild joy, his grin huge, his eyes bright. He had his little arms around both of us like he was claiming us.
Like we were his whole universe.
My breath left me in a sound that wasn’t quite a sob but wasn’t quite a laugh either.
I stared at it, and my vision blurred so fast it felt violent.
