Because the truth had more lives attached to it than mine.
Jace in the locker room, trying to keep his words careful. Jace at my kitchen island, eating toast because I told him half. Jace with his bright, overwhelmed eyes and his fear of being too much for anyone to stay. Jace, who had ended his own relationship and was still learning how to stand in the open without bolting.
Olivia deserved honesty.
She did not deserve a name used as a weapon in the first minute of impact.
I walked into the living room slowly and stopped near the chair, leaving space between us.
“I’m not going to answer that tonight,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed with hurt, not confusion. She understood exactly what my refusal meant and what it didn’t.
“That’s an answer,” she said.
“It’s the only one I can give you without making this worse for reasons that aren’t about protecting myself.”
She stared at me for a long time.
Tiny, sensing no one was going to throw the duck, sighed and settled his chin more heavily on her lap.
Olivia looked down at him, then back at me. The tears were there now, held by stubbornness and pride and pain.
“I don’t know if I respect that,” she said.
“I understand.”
“But I believe you mean it.”
That was more mercy than I deserved.
She stood carefully, moving Tiny’s head from her lap. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” She picked up her water glass from the coffee table, though I didn’t remember her bringing it there. “I want a door tonight.”
I nodded.
At the hallway entrance, she stopped without turning around.
“Declan.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re trying to be decent now, be all the way decent. No more half-truths unless they’re protecting someone who didn’t ask to be dragged into my marriage tonight.”
My throat closed.
“Okay,” I said.
She disappeared down the hall.
A moment later, the guest room door shut.
Tiny looked from the hallway to me, distressed by the separation of his household. He picked up the duck, carried it halfway after Olivia, then stopped and came back to stand in front of me.
I sank into the chair.
