Rowan shook his head. ‘And I put him straight back there.’
‘No.’ Marcus kept his voice gentle. ‘No, you didn’t.’
Rowan looked up then, his eyes dark with something that made Marcus’s chest ache.
‘You got him through it,’ Marcus said. ‘He looked at you. He listened. He came back to you.’
Rowan’s throat worked. ‘He shouldn’t have had to.’
‘But he did. And you were there.’
The words settled between them, soft but certain.
Atlas leaned harder against Rowan, and Rowan closed his eyes for one brief second, his hand curling in the dog’s fur as if holding onto him was the only thing keeping him upright.
Marcus took one more careful step.
‘This wasn’t failure,’ he said. ‘It was a setback. There’s a difference.’
Rowan opened his eyes.
For a moment, the room seemed to shrink around them: the shattered glass, the water on the floor, Jack waiting quietly on the table, Christine murmuring outside, the warm damp scent of shampoo and dog fur.
Rowan looked at Marcus as if he wanted to believe him and did not know how.
Marcus reached out, stopping before his fingers touched Rowan’s sleeve.
‘Can I?’
Rowan’s gaze dropped to Marcus’s hand.
Then he nodded.
Marcus touched him lightly, just above the wrist.
It was barely anything.
But Rowan went still beneath his fingers, and Marcus felt the pulse there, fast and unsteady.
‘You’re allowed to be shaken too,’ Marcus said.
Rowan’s eyes lifted to his.
The air changed.
Marcus felt it in the sudden quiet between them, in the way Rowan did not pull away, in the way his gaze dropped for the briefest second to Marcus’s mouth.
Marcus forgot how to breathe.
Then Atlas shifted, pressing his nose into Rowan’s hand, and Rowan blinked as if waking from a dream.
He pulled back.
Not far.
But far enough.
‘Don’t,’ Rowan said quietly.
