The flight settled into quiet. Engine noise. The occasional rustle of Ash turning pages. Luka's phone vibrating withmessages he answered in terse bursts. I stared out the window and watched the world shrink beneath us, England giving way to ocean.
Going home.
The phrase rattled around my head, picking up connotations I didn't want to examine. Home wasn't supposed to feel like this. Wasn't supposed to sit in your chest like dread wrapped in longing, wasn't supposed to make your hands shake just thinking about walking through a door you'd walked through a thousand times before.
But Chicago had never been simple.
And Declan.
Fuck.
His name alone did things to me I'd spent years pretending didn't happen. Made my jaw tight and my stomach twist and my brain go to places it had no business going. The man had raised me. Had stood in as father when I'd lost mine, had stayed when I'd given him every reason to leave, had absorbed my anger and grief and cruelty without flinching.
I hated him for that. Hated how steady he'd been when everything else was falling apart. Hated that he'd looked at me like I mattered even when I was doing everything possible to prove I didn't. Hated that after all these years, after all the distance I'd put between us, the thought of seeing him again made my pulse kick up and my chest go tight.
I'd left Chicago the last time swearing I wouldn't go back. Too many memories. Too much history. Too much unresolved bullshit that turned every conversation into a minefield and every silence into an accusation.
But here I was. Thirty thousand feet up and climbing, heading straight back to the one place I'd never successfully escaped.
The whiskey wasn't helping.
I ordered another anyway.
Luka glanced up, raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Ash had stopped pretending to read and was watching me with that particular brand of quiet concern that made my skin itch.
“I'm fine,” I said before either of them could ask.
“Didn't say you weren't,” Ash replied.
“You were thinking it.”
“I think a lot of things. Doesn't mean I say them out loud.”
“Revolutionary concept.”
Luka's phone buzzed again. He read whatever message had come through, typed a response, then set it face down on the table. “New York meetings should take two days. Weeks if things get complicated.”
“And if they do?”
“Then I deal with it.” His gaze settled on me, steady and assessing. “You'll be fine on your own for a few days.”
It wasn't a question. Still. The assumption landed wrong, made me bristle even though I knew he was right.
“I've been on my own before,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why does everyone keep acting like I'm about to fall apart?”
“Because,” Ash said quietly, closing his book and setting it aside, “you look like you're about to fall apart.”
The honesty cut cleaner than I expected. I wanted to deny it, throw up walls and deflect with sarcasm, do the dance I'd perfected over years of keeping people at arm's length. But I was tired. Bone tired. The kind that came from holding yourself together when all the pieces wanted to scatter.
“I'll hold it together,” I said instead.
“We know,” Luka said. “You always do. Doesn't mean you have to do it alone.”
“I'm not alone. I'll have Declan.”
