His dick.
I take another swig of coffee and wish it were bourbon.
Footsteps on the stairs.
I know it's him before he rounds the corner. Know it by the weight—lighter than Bane, quieter than Zero, the careful tread of someone who learned young to move through houses without disturbing the air.
The foster kid walk. The ghost walk.
He appears in the kitchen doorway in a t-shirt and sweatpants, hair messed from the pillow, eyes half-closed against the light. Bare feet on the marble. He looks soft in a way that makes my hands ache.
A part of me was wanting this–exactly this. A moment where we both justhappenedto be in the kitchen. Where I could have him alone.
"Couldn't sleep," he says.
"Me either."
He crosses to the island. Sits on the same stool he sat on when Margot fed him cinnamon rolls. Pulls his knees up—the posture I've seen a hundred times, the one where he makes himself small, the one that means he's thinking about more than he's saying.
"Where is everyone?"
"Richard and Margot are asleep. Bane and Zero are out."
"Out."
"They had something to handle."
He doesn't ask what. His eyes hold mine for a beat and I see the understanding. He wants to press but he won’t.
"Coffee?" I ask.
"It's midnight."
"I'm not judging your sleep schedule."
The ghost of a smile. "Sure."
I pour him a cup. Add cream without asking—I know how he takes it. Two sugars, enough cream to turn it the color of caramel. I set it in front of him and our fingers brush on the ceramic and neither of us pulls away.
Then I do something I shouldn't. I round the island. Pull the stool next to his. Sit down.
Our thighs press together when he lowers his knees. His bare leg through thin sweatpants against my dress pants. The contact is immediate and electric and neither of us shifts to break it. The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove, casting everything in warm amber—the marble, the cabinets, Max's face. His bruise has faded to yellow-green. The split lip is almost healed. He looks like himself again, mostly, except for the way he holds himself now—shoulders back, chin slightly higher.
The facility didn't break him. It reorganized him.
We drink our coffee. The silence is companionable in a way our silences have never been—usually they're tense, loaded, full of things I'm choosing not to say. This one is just quiet. Two people sitting close in a dark kitchen because neither wants to be alone.
"How was Wren?" I ask.
"Better. She's still processing everything Bane set up for her. The apartment, the account—I think she looked at the photos on his phone about twelve times." He smiles into his coffee. "She's tougher than she looks."
"She'd have to be."
He smiles into his coffee. A real one. And the sight of it—Max smiling, in my kitchen, at midnight, his leg warm against mine—does something to the architecture of my chest that I don't have a blueprint for.
"How's the stuff Richard brought up?" he asks. Casual. Too casual. His eyes meeting mine over the rim of his cup with that observant sharpness that I keep forgetting he has until it's aimed at me.
"You don't miss much."
