I laugh. “Don’t call it that.”
“Too late. I’m already emotionally attached.”
I glance at him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I shift slightly on the stone, feeling the ache in my lower back, the faint throb behind my eyes that says I pushed myself too hard and I’m going to pay for it later.
Voltar watches me like he’s cataloging every micro-expression.
“You did good in there,” he says again, quieter this time. “I know you don’t need to hear it. But I’m saying it anyway.”
I swallow. “I needed to do it. If I didn’t… if I let him make me smaller…”
He nods. “He doesn’t get to decide who you are.”
“No,” I agree. “I do.”
A breeze cuts across the steps, tugging at my hair. Voltar shifts closer without comment, his arm coming around my shoulders—heavy, solid, protective without being possessive. I lean into him, just a little.
“Hey,” I say.
“Mm?”
“You ever think about what happens after all this?”
“All the time,” he says. “I just don’t tell anyone because they start assigning me feelings.”
I smile faintly. “What do you think about?”
He considers. “Quiet mornings. Fewer explosions. You yelling at me because I tracked soot into the apartment again.”
“That is absolutely going to happen,” I say.
“I know,” he replies fondly.
I hesitate, then say, “You’d make a halfway decent husband.”
The words hang there.
I feel them land between us like a coin dropped into deep water—no splash, just weight.
Voltar goes very still.
I don’t look at him right away. I keep my gaze on the plaza, on the people moving below us, on the way the light glints off the courthouse windows.
When he finally speaks, his voice is careful. “You asking?”
I turn my head then.
Really look at him.
He’s not joking. Not deflecting. He’s serious in a way that makes my chest tighten.
“Not yet,” I say softly.
Something flickers behind his eyes—disappointment, maybe—but it doesn’t harden into anything ugly.
