When I reach him I step into his chest without preamble.
His arms close around me immediately. No half-second pause this time, just immediate and complete.
"I'm back," I say.
His chin comes down to rest on the top of my head.
Behind me I hear Alex come up the steps. He passes us without comment, ducking around Rhys's arm in the doorframe and goes inside.
We stay there in the doorway.
"Told you," I say.
Rhys makes a sound in his chest, low, not quite a word.
But his arms tighten, just slightly, and I think it means something like:yes. You did.
And for the first time in a long time, I'm exactly where I told someone I would be.
It turns out that's not a small thing.
Chapter 19
Finn
The conversation happens days after he heard me.
Days of me finding reasons to be in whatever room Alex isn't in and rearranging my schedule around his, which is harder than it sounds in a cabin this size. Days of Vee noticing something is off and me telling her I'm fine, which she accepts with the grace of a woman who knows when someone is lying and is choosing to let them.
Malcolm told me to talk to him when I was sober and rested. I've been both for a while and I still haven't done it.
It's not that I'm afraid of what Alex will say. It's that I'm afraid of what he won't say. Alex doesn't yell. He doesn't guilt. He processes, adjusts and moves forward. Somehow that's worse than any confrontation could be—the possibility that he heard the worst thing I've ever admitted about myself and just... absorbed it. Put it away somewhere and recalibrated his understanding of me without telling me what the new calculation looks like.
I'm in the kitchen reorganizing the spice cabinet for the second time this week when he finds me.
"Finn."
I don't turn around. "The cumin was behind the paprika. That's not where cumin goes."
"Finn."
"It goes alphabetically or by frequency of use. I haven't decided which system we're implementing yet but either way, behind the paprika is wrong."
"We need to talk."
I put the cumin down, close the cabinet and turn around slowly.
Alex is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. His expression is calm in that way that means he's already thought about this extensively and arrived at the conversation fully prepared.
I am not prepared.
"Okay," I say.
He pulls out a chair and sits. I stay standing because sitting feels like accepting that this is happening.
"Sit down," he says.
I sit down.
