He’s quiet. Tense. Like he’s bracing for the wrong kind of reaction.
“Thank you for doing this.”
He places a hand gently on my back. “Well. Beau helped with the heavy lifting. And the part where I almost sawed my own hand off.”
A choked laugh escapes me. “Of course he did.”
“And Talon loaned us the power tools because he said he wanted to watch a stray die in a more interesting way than hanging.”
“That sounds like him,” I say fondly.
“And Hattie helped me position the bench so the sunrise would hit your face in the morning. After she made me shift about twenty times. I swear, I thought it was bad when I was Dog-Jason, but it’s worse now.”
I laugh through my happy tears.
Jason steps closer, resting his hands on the curve of my waist. “Do you… like it?”
“I love it,” I whisper. “Jason, this is everything. The paths. The rails. The Braille. How the wind comes through from the east.”
He sags against me in relief. I lean into him, and he wraps his arms around me. The breeze brushes past us, warm and lazy for an autumn day, carrying the scent of herbs and soil and the faint sweetness of the falling leaves.
We stand like that for a long time. Just breathing. Just being.
But there’s a tension in him that hasn’t eased, even with my cheek against him, even with the gazebo he built standing around us like a promise.
I tilt my head up and rest my hand against his cheek. “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer at first. I feel it, the hesitation. The war in his chest. The conflict twisting behind his breath. So, I wait and let the silence open between us without crowding it. Let him decide to walk into it.
Finally, he exhales in resignation. “I have something I need to do.”
My throat tightens. There’s only one thing, one person, one fracture between him and peace.
“Froggy?” I murmur.
His silence is confirmation, a silence with edges. A silence that tastes like old wounds and loyalty and heartbreak.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Froggy.”
He swallows. I feel the motion of his throat.
“He’s my brother,” Jason murmurs. “And he messed up. Bad. But he’s still mine to handle.”
“I know.”
He lifts a hand to cradle my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like he’s memorizing the shape of me before he goes. His other hand clutches my waist, fingers digging in the tiniest bit, not enough to hurt, just enough to say I don’t want to leave. He rests his forehead against mine. “I’ll be quick,” he whispers.
Something fragile bruises inside my chest. A fear I don’t want to name.
My hands slide up his chest to rest over his heart. “Jason…”
His pulse stutters under my palms. “I don’t want to leave you,” he admits, voice raw, stripped bare. “Not like this. Not now. Not when I just?—”
He cuts himself off. But I know what he was about to say.
He just chose me.
He just let me in.
