“I know.”
“And it happened anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
The pronoun landed between us, wrong and merciful and brutal.
I couldn’t tell her everything. Not because I wanted to keep my own hands clean. Because Jace’s identity was not mine to give to a room where pain was fresh and trust had just been cut open.
But I would not lie about the thing that mattered.
“Yes,” I said.
Olivia closed her eyes.
For a while there was only the refrigerator hum and Tiny’s breathing.
When she opened them, they were wet, but she didn’t cry. She lifted her chin a little like she was annoyed at her body for threatening it.
“Here?” she asked.
I felt the question in my bones.
“Yes.”
She put the glass down too hard. Water jumped over the rim and spread across the counter.
“Jesus, Declan.”
“I know.”
“In our house?”
“I know.”
“No, don’t do that.” Her voice broke on the edge, then steadied through effort. “Don’t stand there like if you accept responsibility calmly enough it makes it better. It doesn’t.”
“You’re right.”
“I hate when you do that.”
I nodded because there was nothing else.
She turned away, pressed both hands to the counter, and bent her head. Her shoulders rose and fell once. Twice.
I had seen Olivia angry. I had seen her furious at delayed flights, incompetent executives, hotel rooms with no working heat, her brother borrowing money he didn’t intend to repay. I had seen her cry at her grandmother’s funeral and when we packed our first apartment because I had been traded and she had pretended not to mind leaving another city.
This was different.
This was quiet damage.
She straightened and wiped under one eye with the side of her finger before any tear could fall.
“Is it serious?” she asked.
“Yes.”
