"I almost didn't," she said.
"But you did."
"Yeah." She looked down at his chest. Back up. "I did."
He pushed her hair back from her face and she leaned into his touch without thinking about it. Her body had figured out their connection before her brain caught up.
"How are you feeling?" he asked. "All of it. Honestly."
She did an actual check. Full and honest.
"Good," she said. "The kind of good where something actually got resolved. Not moved around or put to the side for another day." She held his gaze. "Light. I feel light." She paused. "And a little wrung out. And hungry, actually."
"I'll make you something to eat, if there’s nothing left from dinner."
"In a minute." She tucked back in against him. "Not yet."
His arms came around her.
Outside the window the compound was doing its things. Irish's voice carried up from below, as Clover made his opinion known, the low distant sound of Savage doing something with his diesel truck that required periodic revving. The rumble ofmotorcycles, and she was pretty sure she could identify both Savannah and Lily’s voices calling out to each other as they played outside.
Home, she thought. Every part of it. The noise and the warmth and the man holding her together. She felt like she’d come home.
"Daddy," she said.
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to sneak out again." She said it into his chest. "I know I said it before. I mean it differently now."
"How, differently?"
"Before, I said it because it was the right thing to say." She pressed closer. "Now I mean it because I understand what it costs. Not me… but, your worry." She paused. "I don't want to cost you that again."
He was quiet for a moment.
His arms tightened around her. His mouth said nothing, but his embrace said everything.
"We should write the rules down," she said, after a while. "Not as a contract. Just, so I have something to look at when I'm in my head."
"Smart."
"I have moments." She tipped her head back to look at him. "Don't look like that."
"I'm not looking like anything."
"There's a face."
"There's no face."
"There's definitely a small?—"
"Emily."
"—extremely specific?—"
"Baby girl."
She stopped. That warm, settling quiet came over her, the specific response to that specific phrase that she'd stopped trying to understand and started just letting happen.
