When I opened my eyes, he was still looking at me.
“I don’t want to wreck your life,” I said.
“You don’t get to carry my choices for me.”
“I can still care.”
“Yes,” he said. “You can care.”
The room went quiet again, but this time it wasn’t empty quiet. It had us in it. It had the dog breathing like a broken engine and the furnace clicking and the truth sitting between us, ugly and necessary.
I shifted closer before I could talk myself out of it.
Tiny objected by going boneless and sliding halfway off my lap, then scrambling upright with zero dignity.
“Move, you dramatic tank,” I muttered.
Declan reached for me. His fingers closed around my wrist, not tight, just enough to ask.
I went.
The space between us disappeared by inches. My knee against his thigh. His arm around my shoulders. My body held stiff for one stupid second because being comforted without sex felt more dangerous than getting naked. Sex had rules. Bodies made sense. This was softer, which meant it could hurt more.
Then I leaned into him.
Declan’s arm settled around me. His other hand came to my hair, fingers sliding in and resting there. Not gripping. Not directing. Holding.
My thoughts didn’t stop. That wasn’t how my brain worked. Olivia was still at Rachel’s. Roman’s name still sat there, not as a threat, but as one more person who might end up bruised by being close to me. Management still existed. The team still existed. Vanessa was still somewhere without me in the version of her life she’d been building.
But the thoughts moved farther away from my skin.
Tiny took one look at us and decided the moment required his full participation. He heaved himself onto the couch with the grace of a tipped refrigerator and sprawled across both of us, one huge paw landing on my stomach.
“Christ,” I wheezed. “He’s trying to finish what the guilt started.”
Declan let out a quiet laugh. Small. Rough. Real.
“He’s comforting you.”
“He’s rearranging my organs.”
Tiny licked my chin.
“Moist emotional support,” I said.
Declan’s hand moved once over my hair. His mouth touched my temple, a slow kiss that made my throat tighten worse than anything he could have said.
I lifted my head.
He looked at me without hiding. Too tired for masks. Too honest for escape.
“I need to say it to you,” he said.
My chest hurt.
“You don’t have to because you said it to her.”
“That’s not why.”
