“This afternoon?”
“After we talked again this morning. She said she couldn’t stay here right now.”
Of course she couldn’t.
This house had evidence of me everywhere, even if nobody else could see it. The couch. The hallway. The kitchen counter. His bedroom. The stupid rubber duck Tiny had mauled while Declan had me pinned to the mattress weeks ago, both of us pretending there was any version of this that wouldn’t hurt people.
Guilt moved through me in a hot, nauseating wave.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Declan’s face shifted, not forgiving me, not blaming me. Something more exhausted than either.
“Come in.”
I stepped out of my sneakers and lined them up by the wall because apparently I could help detonate a marriage but tracking slush across the floor was where I drew the moral line. Tiny stayed plastered against my thigh as if he’d personally been abandoned by everyone he’d ever loved.
Declan led me into the living room.
The quiet hit me harder there.
Not silence, exactly. Tiny’s breathing filled half the room. The furnace kicked on. Somewhere, a clock ticked with irritating confidence. But the house no longer sounded like two people lived in it. No work bag on the chair. No laptop open in the kitchen. No suitcase half-unpacked near the hallway. No second glass beside the sink.
It felt paused.
Declan started for the chair, stopped, then sat on the couch instead. I stayed standing too long because sitting down felt like taking a place I had no right to occupy.
“Jace,” he said.
Not sharp. Not coach voice.
Just my name, low and worn out.
I sat at the far end of the couch.
Tiny immediately tried to climb between us, discovered his body was not built for subtlety, and settled for throwing his front half across my lap.
I looked down at him. “Personal space continues to be a foreign language to this animal.”
“He’s been unsettled all day.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I bet.”
Declan leaned forward, forearms on his knees, hands clasped between them. The tattoos on his arms shifted over muscle and tension. He looked like a man who had kept his composure because there had been no other option, and now didn’t know where to set it down.
“How did it go?” I asked.
The question was uselessly small.
He drew in a breath. “Bad. Better than continuing to lie.”
I nodded. My mouth felt dry.
“I told her I was unhappy,” he said. “I told her I didn’t want to work on the marriage.”
Tiny’s head was heavy against my thigh. I rested my hand on the back of his neck and kept it there.
“She asked if there was someone else.”
