I'm clumsy with this. My arms are in the wrong place, too high on his shoulders, my grip awkward, the angle that works when he holds me failing when I'm the one holding. I adjust, slide my arms lower, bring him closer, and press my hand flat against his spine between his shoulder blades.
He exhales against my neck, rough and uneven.
"I see you," I say. "The person underneath all of it."
His arms tighten. His face pushes harder into my hair.
"I don't know what that person looks like," he says, muffled.
"Neither do I. We'll figure it out."
"That's Dante's line. He said you'd figure it out."
"He's right sometimes."
"Don't tell him that."
The sound that comes out of my chest is closer to a laugh now, wet and shaky. His body shudders against mine with the same broken almost-laugh.
I hold him in the kitchen doorway with my arms around his body, my hand on his back, and his face buried in my hair. For the first time in nine years, everything I've taken from him moves in the other direction, clumsy and imperfect, my arms aching because I'm gripping too hard and I don't fucking care.
Dante is against the counter, watching with his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw working.
Cole lifts his head from my hair and looks over my shoulder at Dante.
"I'm sorry," Cole says. "For the engineering. The rules. The dark being mine."
"Don't apologize for the truth."
"I should have told you."
"Yeah. You should have. Years ago."
"I know."
"And I should have asked. The one time in the locker room. One time in six years." Dante uncrosses his arms, and his hands go to the counter behind him, gripping. "That's on me."
For a second, only the coffee dripping off the counter answers.
I pull back enough to look at Cole's face. His eyes are red. His nose is red. Rain in his hair.
"How are you, Cole?"
His mouth works. His throat moves around the answer before any sound comes out.
"I'm scared," he says. "I'm scared that the truth made me less necessary and less necessary means less wanted and less wanted means—"
He stops.
"Means she leaves," I say. "Means he leaves. The car in the driveway."
"Yeah."
"I'm standing in this doorway with my arms around you. I crossed the room. I reached first."
His eyes search my face, then my mouth, then the placement of my hands on his body. I keep my arms around him and ask nothing else.
Dante moves then. He pushes off the counter and crosses the kitchen to Cole's back, his hand finding the back of Cole's neck. The spot, the grip, the place where his hand has lived for six years. This grip is different. Softer.
