"Taking care of her and falling in love with her are two different things."
"Are they?" Liam raised an eyebrow. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like loving her is exactly how you're taking care of her. You think she'd be where she is right now if you'd kept your distance? You think she'd have Gabrielle, the crew, any of it?"
I thought about Lucy at the station, laughing at something Liam said while Gabrielle dozed in Owen's arms. The way she'd started to relax, to open up, to let people in. The light that had come back into her eyes over the past few weeks.
I'd done that. Or helped, at least. By showing up. By staying.
But that didn't erase what I was feeling. My mind didn’t want to let it feel right.
"Every time I look at her, I see him." My words came quietly. "Every time I hold Gabrielle, I think about the kids he'll never have. The life he should have had." I shook my head. "How is that not a betrayal? How is wanting her not the worst thing I could do to his memory?"
Liam was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer this time.
"You remember what Mateo said to me, the week before he died?"
I looked up. "What?"
"He said he was worried about you. Said youworked too hard, cared too much, never let yourself have anything good." Liam's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "He made me promise to look out for you. Make sure you didn't turn into some lonely old man who lived for the job and nothing else."
Something tightened in my chest.
"He wanted you to be happy, Cal. He wanted both of you to be happy. And if he knew that you and Lucy had found each other, that you were building something together—" Liam shook his head. "He'd be relieved. He'd be grateful. He'd probably make some terrible joke about it and then threaten to haunt you if you screwed it up."
I almost smiled at that. Almost.
Liam stood, but he didn't leave. Just stood there, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Since when do you ask permission?"
"Since now." He waited until I nodded, then continued. "After Mateo died, I watched you disappear. You were still here, still doing the job, still showing up. But something in you just... shut down. Like you'd decided you didn't deserve anything good anymore."
I didn't say anything because I couldn't argue with the truth.
"These past few months, since Lucy's been around, since Gabrielle—you've been different. You're more like the guy I knew before thewarehouse. The guy who actually laughed at my jokes instead of just tolerating them." He paused. "The guy Mateo would recognize."
The words hit harder than I expected. I looked away. I could feel my jaw getting tight.
"You gotta forgive yourself first, Cap." Liam clapped a hand on my shoulder, squeezed once. "Mateo already did. A long time ago."
He left me there, alone with the silence and the weight of everything he'd said.
I remained there in the equipment room until my shift ended, turning his words over like stones.
Mateo already forgave me.
Maybe that was true. Maybe Mateo, wherever he was, had made peace with everything that happened. Maybe he really would want this for us, want Lucy to be loved, want me to stop punishing myself for a failure I couldn't have prevented.
But forgiving myself for failing to save him was one thing.
Forgiving myself for loving her—for wanting the life he should have had—that was something else entirely.
CHAPTER 16
Lucy
That was the plan;I was going to tell him anyway. I'd bring Gabrielle to the station like I always did, find Cal, and finally say the things we’d been dancing around for weeks. I practiced the words in my head the whole drive over, rehearsing them like lines in a play as if by saying them enough times, I could make them feel less painful. As if repetition could dull the edge of a truth I wasn't sure I was ready to face.
