He tilted his head. “DOG.”
I closed my eyes. “Fuck.”
“DOG.”
“We are not doing this.”
He leaned forward. “BAD DOG?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Very bad dog.”
Markie considered that. “DOG.”
I pointed at him. “Hush.”
He shuffled his wings and resumed cracking seeds with great seriousness.
I stared into my coffee.
It had been two days.
Two days since the worst possible combination of misunderstanding, panic, police involvement, emotional boundaries, and a very large, emotionally devastated mountain man had collided in my apartment hallway.
Two days since I had told Liam not to contact me.
The silence had been exactly what I asked for.
Which meant I could not complain about it.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop my brain from replaying the entire situation in slow motion.
Because the more distance I put between myself and the moment, the clearer certain things became.
Liam had made a mistake—a big one—but he had also taken responsibility for it immediately. No excuses. No argument. No attempt to convince me I was wrong.
He had listened and agreed to my boundaries. He had walked away even though it clearly hurt him.
That was… not nothing.
I set the coffee on the table and leaned back into the couch.
My therapist’s voice drifted into my thoughts.
Safe people.
Notice them.
Allow access slowly.
I hated how reasonable that advice sounded.
Because the more I examined the situation honestly, the more I had to admit something uncomfortable.
Liam was a safe person—a very large, slightly obsessive, occasionally overprotective safe person, who had absolutely terrible judgment regarding apartment entry procedures.
But, still safe.
He had fed me. Taken care of me. Respected my independence, even when every instinct in his body clearly wanted to hover around me like a six-foot-four emotional security system.
