She shook her head. Small, involuntary. "Don't."
"I'm not making this up to make you feel better. I didn't leave Naomi because I was chasing you. I was leaving because being around you showed me that what Naomi and I had wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough."
"Travis, stop."
"No." I was so angry I could barely see straight. Not at her. At every person who'd ever let her believe this—her family, the FBI, hell, even me. "You just stood there and listed every reason you think you're not enough, and every single one of them is wrong, and I can't let that stand. I physically cannot."
She was staring at me. Her hands had gone still around the mug.
"You said Naomi was strong. She was. She was one of the best operatives I ever worked with, and I respected the hell out of her professionally. But living with her was hard, Sera.Shewas hard. She liked the fight more than she liked the quiet. She didn't want closeness. She wanted competition."
"She was my sister."
"I know she was. And I know you loved her. But you also know what she was like."
Sera's jaw tightened, but she gave a brief nod.
"You said you're soft. Yeah, you are. And I want that. I have wanted that for longer than I'm comfortable admitting. After years of hard, of everything being a battle, of never being able to just sit in a room with someone without it turning into a contest, soft is what I wanted. Soft is why I love being around you.”
I was pacing now. Three steps one way, three steps back. The kitchen wasn't big enough for what was trying to get out of me. “And make no goddamned mistake. Soft is not the same as being weak.”
She watched me pace.
“Naomi didn’t give a shit about any data analysis. She never wanted to see the whole picture, only wanted whatever allowedher to bust through doors and kick some ass. She definitely never cared about the delicacy of it all. The patterns, the connections, the hunt for the thing nobody else can see. I could watch you do that for hours. I have watched you do that for hours. It’s fucking sexy.”
"Travis."
“Naomi was a bitch, Sera. I know I shouldn’t say that out loud since she’s dead, but we both know it’s true.” I stopped pacing. Looked at her. "Naomi was a great operative. But she was unkind to you, Sera. She let you live in her shadow, and she never once reached down to pull you up. She could have made things easier for you, and she chose not to. Every time. If roles were reversed, you would’ve never done that.”
Sera's eyes were wet. She didn't wipe them.
“So don’t talk about yourself like you’re less. You’re not less. You’ve never been less. You were the reason I looked at the life I'd built with your sister and saw what was missing. Not a different version of Naomi. The opposite.You."
The room was quiet. My heart was slamming against my ribs hard enough that I could feel it in the wound, and I didn't care.
This wasn't guilt. This wasn't confession. This was something I'd kept sealed for years, and it was coming out whether my throat cooperated or not.
"I was attracted to you while she was alive. While I was lying next to her. And the guilt of that is part of what has been driving me to penance. But the want was there first. Before the guilt. Before any of it. So don’t talk about yourself as if you’reless.”
Sera stood against the counter with tears running down her face and her bruised hand wrapped around her mug, and she didn't say anything for a long time.
Then she said something I didn't expect.
"I know."
I stared at her.
"Not that you wanted me. I didn't know that. But you’re right, I knew Naomi was a bitch. I knew she could be cruel when being kind would’ve cost her nothing." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "She was my sister, and I loved her, but I also grew up with her, and I know exactly who she was."
She set the mug down and wrapped her arms around herself. Holding herself together. Holding herself in.
"I wanted you while she was alive."
The words hung in the kitchen.
"I wanted you, and I hated myself for it. I pulled away from both of you because I couldn't be in the same room with you and keep it off my face. Every family dinner, every holiday, every time Naomi brought you around and I had to sit across the table and pretend I didn’t wish I was the one with my sister’s boyfriend. So, I stopped coming. I made excuses. I let the distance grow until Naomi stopped asking."
She turned away from me. Faced the counter, her hands braced on the edge, her head dropped forward.
