“Sín,” I whisper.
His good eye opens. For a second, he looks through me instead of at me, still somewhere between this room and wherever his body dragged him to survive. Then his gaze finds my face. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I reach for the water on the nightstand, slide one hand behind his head as carefully as I know how, and help him take a small sip.
“You’re home,” I tell him.
The word leaves my mouth before I decide whether I’m allowed to use it.
His gaze drops from my face to my hands, then moves to my left side, to the dark stain spreading slowly through the shirtnear the bandage. His fingers shift under the blanket, reaching in that direction before pain stops him.
The first proper thing Oisín does after waking up beaten, cut, concussed, and half-drowned in pain is look for where Canon hurt me.
“I’m fine,” I push out, though my voice sounds wrong to my own ears.
His eye drifts back to mine. He doesn’t believe me. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers.
“So are you.”
His mouth twitches like he might try to be annoyed if he had the strength. “That’s not an answer.”
“No,” I say, brushing my thumb over the edge of the blanket near his hand because I’m afraid to touch anything bruised. “It isn’t.”
He watches me for a long moment, the silence between us holding all the things I didn’t say before he walked out.Tell me what I am to you.He’s too exhausted to ask it again, and I’m not enough of a coward to pretend that means it disappeared.
“I didn’t mean to say anything,” he whispers, shame roughening what little voice he has left. “I tried to keep it back.”
“I know you did.” I keep my voice low because anything harder will land like blame. “Moth walked me through it. You gave them old pieces, wrong pieces, enough to make Canon think he had the board and not enough to save him from walking into the trap.”
His eye closes, and for a second I think I’ve lost him to exhaustion again. Then his fingers move under the blanket, searching until they find the edge of my hand. “I tried,” he says, the words coming out small enough to gut me.
I slide my fingers under his, careful around the swelling, and hold on. “I never thought you chose that. Not once.” Tears gather in my eyes but I quickly slap them away, confused on whathappens next. This is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with a partner and I don’t know what to do. I stand, clearing my throat, the awkwardness settling in. “I’m making coffee.”
Oisín blinks at me, seeing through me as I move into the small attached kitchen. The bedroom is on the other side of the clubhouse, meant for guests who need the whole experience. And now it’s my husbands so he can be close to everything he could possibly need.
The coffee machine sits on the counter, simple enough that I’ve seen prospects operate it without injury. I manage to fuck it up anyway.
The first attempt comes out too thin. The second smells burnt. The third somehow smells worse, like charcoal dissolved in regret. I stand there with one hand braced on the counter, staring at the mug like it has betrayed me personally. I run a pharmaceutical-grade XR3 operation with margins that would make cartel accountants weep. I can coordinate multi-state distribution, bait a rival crew into a false corridor, and kill three armed men in a hallway without raising my voice. I cannot make coffee worth drinking.
Tally would never let me hear the end of this if she saw it.
I bring the least offensive mug back anyway.
Oisín is awake when I return, eyes half-lidded, face gray with pain but aware. He watches me cross the room like the coffee is either a peace offering or a threat. Maybe both. I help him sit up just enough to drink, one hand behind his shoulders, every sound he makes landing under my skin. He takes the mug with both hands because his fingers are still unsteady, and I keep my hand close in case his grip fails.
He takes a sip, and nothing in his face changes. That might be the cruelest thing he’s done to me all week.
“It’s bad,” I say.
His mouth twitches, his split lip pulling at the edge. “Yes.”
The honesty almost knocks a laugh out of me. “You drank it anyway.”
“You made it.”
I watch him as he continues to sip it, his face warming in fractions until I can’t help myself but lean in to kiss him. His hand comes up and settles flat against my chest, holding me in place, fingers trembling against my shirt. My whole body stops because that hand isn’t refusal exactly, but it’s a boundary, and after last night I know the cost of misunderstanding one.
“Sín?”
His eye stays on mine. “This doesn’t change us.”
