Silence permeates the room.
Hope sits back down on the couch and presses her palms to her eyes. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Neither do I.
I sit beside her, leaving space. “Don’t worry.”
“What do you even mean?” Her hands drop.
Damn it.
“It means you don’t have to figure out all of it today.” I exhale and start again. “Be mad at me if you want. Tell me I crossed a line. You’re probably right, but I still would have paid them.”
A tiny sound escapes her, half laugh, half disbelief. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m aware.”
She turns toward me and something in her face changes. Not gratitude or obligation. More complicated than either. “You scare me a little.”
“Fair.” I nod once.
“Not in a bad way.”
My pulse jumps.
Hope reaches for my hand and looks at our fingers together instead of my face. “Other than my mother, nobody has ever shown up for me like this.”
I can’t answer right away. My throat works. Nothing comes.
She notices. Then she leans in and kisses me.
Not hungry or reckless. This one opens slow and deep and wrecks me in a way I never thought possible. I put my free hand on her waist and kiss her back with all the control I’ve got, which isn’t much. She moves closer until our knees tangle. Her thumb rubs once across my knuckles.
When she pulls back, her forehead rests against mine.
“I’m still mad,” she murmurs.
“I figured.”
“I’m also sorry for being a bitch when I should say thank you. You saved me. Again.”
Relief almost makes me laugh. “Good.”
“You’re still weird.” Her mouth brushes mine again.
“I know.”
She strokes the back of my neck. “You’re acting as though I’m going to vanish if you blink.”
I don’t answer. It’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
She leans back enough to look at me, and there’s too much intelligence in her face for me to bother pretending. “Alek, if I’m honest, I don’t know what happens with us when I get my life back. I care about you in ways I don’t understand. Irelyon you. My head is all scrambled up and I’m not fully myself."
There it is. The fear I’ve been carrying around all week articulated in her voice instead of my brain.
I nod once. “Okay.”
Her eyes search mine, maybe looking for panic, maybe waiting for me to ask for a promise neither of us should make.
