"I need you to think about taking the private tier down. Just until this is resolved."
He saysthink about.Notyou need to.NotI want you to.He saysthink aboutand he waits. And the fact that he's asking instead of telling — after the conversation we had in my apartment about wanting me smaller, after that fight, after my voice cracking on the wordsmaller— the fact that he learned from that and is applying it right now, in this moment, when he's scared and angry and every instinct he has is screaming at him to lock the doors and take my phone and wrap me in something bulletproof — that costs him. I can see exactly what it costs him.
"Okay," I say.
He blinks. "Okay?"
"I said okay. Don't make it weird." I close my laptop. "Someone who knows where I live and who I'm sleeping with just sent me a message referencing both of those things. I'm not an idiot. The tier goes down until you tell me it's safe." I look at him. "That's not you winning. That's me making a decision."
"I know the difference," he says.
"Good."
Declan lets out a breath. I feel him working himself up to say something. "When this is over," he says. "When this is over, I'm not keeping this a secret anymore."
I go still.
"My dad?"
"I know."
"Declan, mydad!"
"I know." He looks at me. "I know what it costs. I know what it does to thirty years. I know. And I'm not keeping you a secret anymore."
He saysI'm not keeping you a secretand he means it the way Declan Maguire means things, which is completely, without exit strategy, having already calculated the cost and decided to pay it. He cares. He cares enormously about my dad, about the friendship, about everything this will destroy. That's why it lands. Because he's choosing me over the thing he's most afraid to lose.
It's late.
The team is working. The tier is down. There's nothing else to do tonight and the house is quiet and we're on his bed, fully clothed, and he's holding me.
I'm lying against his chest. His arm around me. My hand on his stomach, rising and falling with his breathing. The lamp is on. Neither of us has made a move to turn it off because turning it off would mean this is a normal night and it isn't.
The declaration is still in the room.I'm not keeping you a secret anymore.It sits in the air above us like something with weight and shape. He said it and I saidokayand he exhaled and now we're lying here with the full cost of what comes next pressing down on both of us.
My dad at the kitchen table. Sunday dinner. The pot roast. Declan in his chair. Thirty years of a friendship that has been the most reliable thing in both of their lives.
That's what he just offered to break. For me.
"Declan."
"Mm."
"You know what this does to you and him. Not just to me and him. Toyouand him."
He's quiet for a long time. His chest rises and falls under my hand.
"Ronan is the best man I know," he says. "He's been the best man I know for thirty years. He was there when my marriage ended. I was there the night your mother died. There's no version of my life that makes sense without him in it." A pause. "And I'm still telling him."
"He might not forgive you."
"He might not."
"That doesn't scare you?"
"It terrifies me." His arm tightens around me. "But hiding you scares me more. I've been hiding things from Ronan for months and it's the worst thing I've ever done to him and the longer it goes on the worse it gets. He deserves the truth. Even if the truth costs me everything."
I press my face into his chest. His hand comes up to my hair. Strokes it. The same slow, repetitive movement from the night he showed me the file, when I was scared and he held me until I stopped.
