“See?” His fingers brush my hair off my forehead. “Terrifyingly brave.”
“Stop,” I mutter, but my face heats anyway. “You’re gonna make me feral.”
“Please.” He leans down and kisses me in a way that makes my chest ache. “Pretty sure that’s already your default setting.”
I kiss him back until all the hamsters shut up for a minute.
When we finally separate, he sighs. “You have therapy today, yeah?”
“Mm-hm.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Two o’clock. Dr. Kaur is gonna have a field day.”
“Good,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to untangle this shit alone.”
I study his face. The words from his text last night flash behind my eyes again.
“And you?” I ask quietly. “You still… going to call them back? For your own thing?”
“Already did,” he says, like it’s nothing. “Got an appointment next week. Lady on the phone called it ‘support for supporters.’”
I blink. “You didn’t tell me that part.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “You had your own emotional boss battle going on. Didn’t want to upload a side quest. I left you the texts. We’ll talk more after you debrief with your boss.”
“My boss?” I echo, furrowing my brow.He knows I don’t work.
“Dr. Kaur,” he says. “She terrifies me and I haven’t even met her.”
A startled laugh escapes me. “She’d like you. Probably too much. She’ll start ordering us around in matching worksheets.”
“I’ll fight her for you,” he says, dead serious. “Unless she’s right. Then I’ll pretend it was my idea.”
“God, I hate how much that turns me on,” I mutter.
He smirks. “Focus,hermoso. Go shower. I’ll make you coffee. Real food.”
“Define real food,” I say suspiciously.
He pushes the blanket off us and swings his legs out of bed. “Eggs, toast, maybe actual fruit if you don’t mouth off.”
“Wow,” I say, dragging myself up with the grace of a dying seal. “Really stepping up your wife material.”
He snaps his teeth at me. “Say that again and I’m spitting in your omelet.”
I grin, but as I watch him stand up and stretch, something twists in my gut.
Miguel’s going to therapy.
Forme.
No, forus.
Half of me wants to sink to my knees and thank him until the sun burns out. The other half wants to apologize until my throat bleeds. We don’t have time for either. So I just nod and head to the bathroom, clutching my duffel like a shield.
By the timeI make it to campus, my body’s mostly functioning like a human. Miguel practically force-fed me scrambled eggs, toast, and orange slices while I glared at him over the coffee mug. He texted me “alive?” the second I stepped into the quad.
Caleb
Alive and brain loading.
