“You can,” she says, “and you will later.”
She says it gently, which somehow makes it harder to argue.
Maeve shifts closer and nudges my shoulder with hers. “He looked bad when he left,” she says quietly, eyes on the fire instead of on me. “Work bad, not bleeding-out bad, if that helps.”
It does and it does not.
“I know,” I say.
“You two have the same face when you’re worried,” she adds.
I turn to look at her, and she grins a little, quick and crooked.
“That cannot be true.”
“It is, and it’s horrible to watch.”
His mother clicks her tongue. “Leave the girl alone.”
“I am being supportive.”
“You are being nosy.”
Maeve smiles into her cup and goes back to the television. The easy bickering should calm me, and part of me wants to sink into it, wants to stay right here under this blanket and let the room hold for one more hour. For one more night, even. I could tell him tomorrow. I could wait until morning and choose my words with a clear head and a locked door and no blood on his cuffs.
The thought barely forms before another one cuts through it.
Tomorrow is not promised in this house.
I stand up too quickly, and the room shifts once at the edges. Maeve is on her feet immediately, one hand out, and I catch the back of the sofa before she reaches me.
“Easy,” she says.
“I’m fine.” I hate that phrase now. “Just stood too fast.”
His mother is already there, her hand cool at my wrist, thumb on my pulse. “Sit.”
“I want to go upstairs and wash my face.”
“You can wash it sitting down too.”
Despite myself, I laugh once, thin and tired, and she gives me a look that says she will take the laugh and the obedience together if she can get both.
Headlights sweep across the line of curtains and move on, then return, slower this time, spilling white bands through the gaps where the fabric does not meet perfectly. Tires crunch on gravel outside.
The room changes.
Maeve’s posture shifts first. His mother drops my wrist and turns toward the hall. I stand still with one hand on the sofa and listen to car doors open, voices outside, the front door, boots in the entry, the low exchange of men who are still in work mode and trying not to carry it into the house.
I know his step before I see him.
He comes into the sitting room with Conall two paces behind and stops just inside the threshold. His jacket is still on, the front of his shirt is open at the throat, and the side of his face catches the lamp light in a way that shows every hour he has been gone. Dock grit marks one sleeve, there is a dark smear near his cuff that could be oil and could be blood, and his eyes go to me first, straight and hard, like he was walking in with five things in his head and all of them just got pushed into a different order.
The breath leaves me so fast, my chest hurts.
He knows.
I do not know what he knows, and the difference stops mattering the second I see his face.
