“And you think you have it?”
“I’ll make it.” No matter what it takes.
His gaze sharpens. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Maybe.” The word slips out before I can stop it. Before I can dress it up or soften it or pretend I care more about that outcome than I do.
Because right now—I don’t.
“And you’re okay with that?” he asks.
I hold his gaze and snap the rubber band on my wrist, refusing the blink at the sting. “Yes.”
The silence that follows is different. It’s not heavy or tense, but something quieter. More dangerous.
Nash exhales slowly, his hand sliding from my face to the back of my neck, fingers curling there, holding me in place—not forcing, just…grounding.
“Well, I’m not,” he says.
The words are low. Rougher than anything he’s said so far.
Why? I don’t ask. Don’t give him the opening.
But he must see it anyway, because his hand finds my fingers, still snapping the rubber band methodically against my wrist, and curls around them, slow, deliberate.
“You don’t get to decide you’re disposable,” he continues. “Not in my house. Not under my watch.”
“I’m not yours to?—”
His grip tightens, not enough to hurt, but enough to halt the flow of speech.
“I don’t need you to be mine,” he says, voice dropping. “I just need you alive. Fighting. Pushing. Giving me everything I didn’t think I could have.”
That—that does something. Something I don’t want to examine too closely. Because it feels too much like—care.
And I don’t trust that. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust myself to stay if I start believing any of this.
So I do the only thing I know how to do. I push back.
“Then maybe you should help me,” I say, quieter now but no less sharp. “Maybe you should stop protecting him and start protecting me.” I know I’m asking too much. I know that what I’m asking is going to destroy this tentative thread between us. But I still ask.
Because his refusal means that I can’t trust him. Any of them. And I need that extremely painful reminder.
His eyes darken. “That’s not what I’m doing, Reva.”
“That’s sure as shit what it feels like.”
“That’s because you’re only looking at one piece of the board and refusing to see the others.”
“I’m looking at the only piece that matters.”
“No,” he says. “You’re looking at the one that hurts the most rather than the ones that can put you back together again.”
For a second, neither of us moves. The space between us tightens, stretched thin with everything neither of us is saying.
I hover, caught in a moment of indecision. I want him, and I’m mad at him. Possibly—probably—undeniableand unreasonably so. None of that seems to matter where he and my body are concerned, though.
His gaze drops to my mouth, slow, deliberate, like he’s already decided how this is going to go, and every nerve sparks to life. He’s just waiting for me to stop pretending I haven’t and get with the program.
