Page 224 of What We Become

I smile into the dark.

Nobody moves to get up.

Nobody reaches for a mask or a weapon or a story to hide behind.

We just stay there in our heap on the sand, sticky and aching and gloriously alive, letting the crash of the waves wash through us while the adrenaline bleeds off and the world slowly, strangely, settles.

Then Milo clears his throat with all the solemnity of a man about to address the nation.

“You know something? I feel like this should be the moment we all propose.”

FIFTY-FOUR

MICAH

There’s a grain of sand stuck to Eli’s cheekbone.

I’ve been looking at it since we got in the van. Through the drive home, through getting Knox inside, through the six of us standing in the hallway with the door shut behind us like none of us quite knows what comes next.

It’s still there when Eli catches me staring.

“What?”

I reach up and brush it away. My fingers stay against his face.

Right where the knife was.

“Come upstairs to get cleaned up with me.”

He studies my face. Then he nods.

Behind us, Holden tells Knox to sit the fuck down. Milo offers an opinion nobody asked for. Sage laughs, and the sound follows us up the stairs, tired and cracked and so fucking good that I have to stop for a second with my hand on the banister.

“You okay?” Eli asks, pausing beside me.

“Yeah.” I take his hand, press a kiss to the back of it, and hold on for the rest of the way.

We collect clean clothes and head to the bathroom. Eli carries mine with his and sets them on top of the hamper.

I close the door and turn the lock. The little click makes him look at me.

“I’d like five minutes without an audience.”

He chuckles. “You think a lock will stop them?”

“I’m hoping for manners.”

“From this family?”

“Let me have my dreams.”

He almost smiles.

Up close, under the unforgiving light, he looks like he needs to sleep for a week. There’s a bruise coming up along his shoulder where his shirt collar has dragged sideways. Dried blood edges the dressings around his wrists. His eyes are red at the rims.

I doubt I look any better.

I reach past him and turn the shower on to warm, the pipes groaning as the water begins to rumble through the walls.