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No makeup. Hair dragged back into a no-nonsense ponytail. Cheeks flushed, mouth set.

And grief — raw, unhidden — burning in her eyes.

“You lost a friend,” he said, quieter now. Careful.

“And?”

Ronan stared at her, something in his chest tightening. “My God, Felicity … are you really that determined to do everything alone?”

Her jaw flexed.

“Friends show up,” he said, voice low, steady despite the frustration still coiling through him. “They carry the weight when you can’t. Especially when someone you love dies.”

“I never loved Galina.”

The words came out sharp. Flat.

But the crack in her voice betrayed her.

Ronan didn’t let it go. “She obviously loved you,” he said, quieter now, but no less firm. “Trusted you.”

Her spine snapped straight, every inch of her going rigid. “Fuck you, Marine. I don’t need to listen to your shit.”

She turned and took the stairs fast.

Stopped halfway up.

Swung back around, eyes blazing down at him.

“I don’t need friends,” she bit out. “Never have. Managed just fine without them till now. Consider our friendship voided.”

The words echoed long after she disappeared upstairs.

Ronan stood there, anger riding him hard.

Until something she’d said cut through it.

Since I was seventeen.

The fury faltered. Shifted.

He exhaled slowly, the fight bleeding out of him as something else took its place. Something heavier.

Because he realized he didn’t know her. Not really.

Not beyond the surface she allowed him to see.

She never talked about herself. Never offered anything up.

And he…

He’d filled the silence. Stories about his family. His brothers and sister. The campground his family owned. The chaos, the loyalty, the noise of it all. His time in the Marines. Teammates he’d lost to the war. Even the good times with Violet.

She’d listened. Asked questions, sometimes. Smiled in that small, guarded way of hers.

But when it came to her?

Nothing.