I blink at him because that is objectively untrue.
My hands are shaking, my chest feels too tight, and my brain keeps replaying the exact moment he stepped in front of me like it’s trying to understand things I haven’t fully processed yet.
“I hate that you got hurt?—”
“No.”
Zane presses harder, and Finn winces, muttering something about hostile working conditions, but when he looks back at me, the humor fades.
“No,” he repeats, quieter this time, but somehow more certain. “Don’t do that.”
My throat tightens.
Because I saw it. I saw the man move toward me, saw the shift in his body, and then Finn was just… there. In the way. Taking the hit like it was the most natural decision in the world.
“You could have?—”
“I know. And I would again.”
I look down because if I keep looking at him, I’m going to fall apart again, and I’ve already cried enough for one morning.
Finn’s thumb brushes over my hand where it’s pressed to the gauze, a small, absent motion that feels far too deliberate.
“I’m okay,” he says.
“You’re bleeding,” I reply.
“Minor detail.”
“That is not a minor detail.”
Zane leans back slightly, assessing his work. “It’ll hold for now.”
Which, coming from Zane, I assume is the medical equivalent of cautiously optimistic.
Ryder cuts in from the doorway. “How bad?”
I look up.
He stands half in shadow, shoulders squared, attention split between the outside world and what’s happening inside this small, too bright space. There’s a stillness to him that feels coiled, controlled in a way that suggests he’s already ten steps ahead of whatever comes next.
“Deep, but clean,” Zane answers. “He’ll need stitches.”
Finn exhales. “See? Clean. We love clean.”
I shouldn’t smile. I do anyway, just a little.
Ryder’s gaze shifts to me, and everything else fades.
He isn’t just assessing the situation. He’s looking at my face, my hands, the blood, the way I’m still crouched like I forgot how to stand up properly.
His expression moves. There’s a pull there. A tension that feels like it’s pulling him in two different directions at once.
He wants to come closer.
That much is obvious.
But he doesn’t.
