He lay in the bed, surrounded by wires and tubes. The ventilator whirred beside him as his chest rose and fell mechanically. He looked smaller like that. Just a man—impossible to please, to read, to reach—lying there, broken open, kept alive by machines. My father.
My gaze dropped to the bandage across his chest. It rose and fell with his breathing as my hand lifted to the glass.
Up.
And down.
Up.
And down.
A wave of relief passed through me, loosening the death grip fear had wrapped around my heart.
He’s alive.
The world tilted back into place.
“Hello, old man,” I whispered, my breath fogging the glass.
He was alive.
I held onto that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ETHAN
Something changed.
Hours had passed since the surgeon came out to speak with us. The brothers had been going in and out for a while. We’d eaten bad hospital food, survived on massive amounts of coffee, dozed off in uncomfortable chairs, and watched the same commercials loop endlessly on the waiting room TV.
When Sebastian had stepped through the doors again, he hadn’t looked like a man on the verge of a breakdown anymore. That sharp edge in his eyes had been gone, the tight press of his mouth loosened. And the moment he’d taken the seat beside me, I’d felt it.
Something changed.
It reminded me of how soft he used to get after we’d had sex—how his walls would lower just enough for me to glimpse the real Sebastian underneath. The one without such a punishing grip on control. The one who could sink into the chair beside me, whose eyes turned molten when they found mine, who leaned in close and spoke in a voice meant only for me.
The version of him that, little by little, had made me fall in love with him the first time.
That Sebastian was back.
But beneath the familiarity, there was something different now—something quieter, stripped raw by fear and exhaustion and the long night we’d just survived. Sebastian had always been affectionate—at least with me. But this wasn’t the same. The way he sought it now, the way he kept reaching for it, wasn’t about claiming or commanding. It was softer. Like he was letting himself be held. Like he wanted to be taken care of.
And that—out of everything I’d been through with Sebastian—was the part that really fucked me up.
Because this was Sebastian Langley we were talking about.
SebastianI don’t need anybodyLangley.
SebastianI can handle everything myselfLangley.
SebastianI keep my emotions locked down and function like a goddamn machineLangley.
Right now, none of that armor seemed to fit.
He was letting me in.
And it didn’t feel like a responsibility or a burden. Being there for him came more naturally than breathing. From the moment he got that call—when I watched him freeze in place—I knew exactly what I had to do. Where I had to be. If he needed me, I was there. I didn’t stop to dissect what that meant about boundaries or pride. It didn’t feel reckless.
