You let him talk you out of it.
“Shut up,” I whisper to no one, sliding my thumb up and down the ridge of his spine.
He stirs, mumbling something incoherent, then settles again. When I shift to check the time, his hand tightens in my shirt.
“Don’t,” he mutters, not awake. “Stay.”
My throat does that stupid tight thing. “I’m not going anywhere,” I murmur into his hair. “Just seeing what fresh hell the alarm has for us.”
Caleb snuffles, unimpressed.
The clock says 7:38. My alarm’s due in two minutes. Work in an hour. Therapy at eleven.
Wiring, feelings, repeat.
“Caleb,” I say softly, nudging his shoulder. “Baby. Time to be a real boy.”
“Mmmnn.” Dragging his face away from my chest, squinting like the air offended him. “No. Cancel day. Return to sender.”
“Can’t,” I say. “Boss and capitalism say no.”
He makes a guttural noise that I’m pretty sure isn’t in any human language and flops onto his back, arm over his eyes. The sheet slides down, exposing a strip of stomach and the marks my fingers left on his hips. My brain, unhelpfully, supplies a slideshow of last night—him under me, eyes blown, voice wrecked.
Is this a distraction request?
“Morning, brain gremlin,” I say, rolling onto my side to look at him. “Volume?”
Sighing, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Loud,” he says. “Seven? Eight? I…” His voice trails off.
I wait.
“I’m fine,” he finishes, too quickly. “Just… the usual. Exams, nightmares, my greatest hits.”
I study him. The safety plan runs like a checklist: nightmares, check. Loud volume, check. Big family convo yesterday, check-plus.
“What did your dad say?” I ask. “You never really told me.”
Caleb goes still in that whole-body way that sets off every alarm in my ribs.
“Nothing major,” he says after a beat. “Just… lawyer bullshit. We’ll talk later. I don’t have the word count to unpack it before coffee.”
“Caleb,” I say quietly.
He pulls his arm away from his face and looks at me. There’s something like an apology in his eyes. And stubbornness. Always that.
My little brat.
“I promise I’ll tell you,” he says. “I just… need it to not be the main character for one goddamn second.”
Closing my eyes, I exhale slowly. Dr. Ortega’s voice is already warming up in the back of my head. You don’t have to rip everything open on sight. You can invite, not interrogate.
“Okay,” I say. “Later. But ‘later’ is not code for ‘never.’”
“I know.” He reaches over, fingers curling around my wrist. “I will. Cross my traumatized little heart.”
“It’s actually pretty big,” I say. “Huge, in fact. Obnoxiously so.”
He snorts, a little of the tension leaking out. “Flattery. Effective technique,” he mutters, finally rolling out of bed.
