A pause. Chris’s breath catching.
“Yeah.” His voice is thick. “I know.”
I smile to myself, too tired to open my eyes but warm down to my bones. The rain keeps falling. The fire keeps burning. And somehow, impossibly, we’re all still here.
We’re all still choosing this.
51
Chris
The Pacific is trying to tear itself apart beyond the windows.
I watch it from the kitchen. Gray sky, gray water, whitecaps rolling in and thundering against the beach. The wind keeps throwing itself against the glass like it’s personally offended by the architecture. Somewhere out there, past the cliff edge, the ocean is doing what oceans do in storms: reminding everything smaller that it doesn’t give a shit about their problems.
Fair enough. Neither do I, right now.
The safe house is one of those sleek modern boxes that looks like it was designed by someone who’s never had to worry about defensible positions. All glass and clean angles, exposed sight lines everywhere. A sniper’s wet dream. But it’s Agency property, which hopefully means the glass is bulletproof. At least the security system is better than anything I could rig myself, so I’m trying not to let the tactical assessment ruin what’s supposed to be safety.
My face hurts. My knuckles are still scabbed from wherever I was for those four days I don’t want to remember, and the bruise around my eye is a deep purple that’s gone almost black at the edges. I look like what I am: a man who got the shit kicked out of him and hasn’t had time to recover.
Wyatt’s at the counter, slicing vegetables. The knife moves steady. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Peppers into strips. Onions into crescents. He glances up when I come in, and his expression eases. Not all the way, but enough.
We’re not awkward. Hard to be, after what we just shared. Both of us inside her at the same time, her body stretched around us, the three of us so tangled together I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began. Maybe the most intimate thing I’ve ever done. Better than I imagined, and I’d imagined it plenty.
Nina’s perched on a barstool across the island, legs tucked under her, humming something off-key as she flips through a magazine she found somewhere. Coffee in hand. She looks drunk on it. Sated and loose and completely unbothered by the fact that she just took both of us at once. I could watch her like this for hours.
But there’s still something between Wyatt and me that needs saying. Something the sex didn’t cover.
His knife pauses mid-stroke. He doesn’t look up, but I can tell he’s feeling it too.
I move close enough that he has to acknowledge me and lean against the counter.
“Hey.”
He sets the knife down. Meets my eyes.
“We good?” I ask.
He exhales. “Better than I thought I’d be.” His gaze flicks to the bruise around my eye, then back. “You?”
“Still figuring that out.” Honest. More than I’d usually give anyone. “But I want to be.”
I reach out, grip the back of his neck, and hold his gaze for a beat. My eyes drift down to the fading bruises still adorning his throat, my thumb brushing lightly over one of them. He swallows and moves closer, his hand coming up to my wrist and holding on.
We stay like that for a moment. Not saying anything. There isn’t much more to say than what we already said earlier. From here on out, what we both need is action more than words. Touch more than talk. Proof that we’re here. That we’re staying, that when I said I loved him, I meant it.
He nods, once. Pulls back. His eyes are wet but he doesn’t wipe them away.
I glance at Nina, still flipping through her magazine, but a secret smile curves her lips.
“I know you want more than what I can give you right now,” I say. “And I’m sorry I’m—” I almost say broken but that isn’t fair to myself. I’m not broken. I’m just... bent. “I still have some work to do to get there. But I’m trying.”
“Chris, after everything we helped Nina go through, do you think I don’t know what that looks like?” He shakes his head. “I’m not entitled to your body any more than we were entitled to hers, whether it’s for sex or reproduction or anything else. You’ll get there when you get there. I can wait.”
“Nina helps,” I say, and the admission surprises me even as it comes out. “When she’s here—when I can see her, touch her—I don’t slip as easily. She keeps me present somehow. I don’t know why.” I take a breath. “I’m hoping, with time, you’ll be able to do the same thing for me. I’m hoping we can figure this out together.”
Behind me, Nina makes a soft sound. I don’t turn around, but I feel her presence like a warm spot at my back.
