“Coffee?” she asked, neutral as a judge.
“Sure,” I said. My voice sounded better wet—less gravel, more man. I came close enough to take the mug, and that was when her hand flashed.
She slapped me. No windup, no drama, a clean crack that snapped my head a fraction and lit fire across my cheek. I didn’t step back. Hannah didn’t move. Diego looked up from where he sat at the table.
“I can’t believe you,” she said quietly. It was worse than a shout ever could be.
“I didn’t—” The explanation died on my tongue.
“She is my best friend,” Maria said. “In the whole world. She is the strongest, most selfless, bravest person I know.” She didn’t give me a beat to recover.
“And do you know what color she turned in that bathroom?” she asked, voice shaking now, not with fear—with rage that loved this much. “You know what sound came out of Dalton when the door finally gave out and she didn’t get up? He held her while I dialed 911.”
“I watched her rebuild herself one day at a time. I watched her put vitamins in a stupid little organizer like a ninety-year-old woman because it made each morning more doable. I watched her talk to a therapist and tell the truth even when it made her gag. I watched hope come back into her eyes by millimeters.Then you walked in from the dead and it went brighter than I’ve ever seen. And now—”
Her voice shook, finally. “Now you throw all that in the trash. You make me watch her watch you drown so she can decide whether to follow. I watched hope crawl back behind her eyes—” she stabbed a finger toward my face “—and you are stealing that from her, you selfish son of a bitch.”
She stepped towards me like she wanted to hit me again but Diego was there, sliding in behind her like a catcher snagging a wild pitch. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hauled her back as she came forward for another round. “Baby, no,” he said into her hair, steady and low. “You said what needed saying.”
Diego’s jaw worked. He looked at me over her shoulder with something that wasn’t hate. God, I kind of wished it was. It was worse. Pity. Fury. Fear. A mirror held up to my wreckage. He pulled her closer and let her tremble against his chest, and that nearly buckled my knees.
Hannah didn’t say a word. She wiped the bar with one perfect swipe like she was clearing a surgical field, before fixing each of us with a stern look. “Enough,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”
Maria’s eyes stayed on me until Diego moved her toward the door. She didn’t say another thing. She didn’t have to. The look she left in the space between us kept speaking.
I stood there with my cheek stinging and every muscle in my back tight enough to hum. The hunger that rose in my gut felt like anger, but beneath it was something uglier—shame. The kind that made you want to turn yourself inside out and run. “Eat your breakfast,” Hannah said like we hadn’t all just watched a bomb go off. “Then go make yourself useful.”
I ate even though the food was like sawdust in my mouth. The bacon chewy. The eggs were over medium because she knewI hated runny. Coffee, black. The only way I should’ve been drinking it these past few months.
The garage drew me like a magnet drew filings. Metal and noise. The holy smell of oil and cut steel. Men who didn’t say things until they have to. Mac had the top half of a Panhead open like a book. Dalton sorted parts on a rag towel with that quiet precision he got when he didn’t trust his temper. Diego came in a few minutes after me, jaw hard, eyes blown out and black, hands still shaking from holding his woman back.
They all looked at me. The world tilted the smallest measurable amount. Dalton continued his task and he didn’t look up at me when he spoke.
“Do you love her?”
“I—”
He set a part down harder than necessary. Metal rang against concrete.
“No. None of that. Do. You. Love. Her?”
I glanced at the three guys I’d grown up with. The only ones who’d seen every version of me. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
Mac shook his head once. “You’ve got a real shitty way of showing it lately.”
My jaw tightened. “Y’all don’t get it.”
Dalton huffed a dry laugh. “Nope. Sure don’t. Never been dead. Never crawled out of a hole we shouldn’t have walked away from.” He stepped closer. “But you got a second chance.”
He held my stare.
“And if it were me? I wouldn’t be pissing it away.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Diego finally looked up. Calm. Too calm. “Do I need to bring Maria back in here?”
I winced.
