Page 90

“I have a lot of confidence in you.” I hold his eyes. “It’s not blind confidence. I’ve watched you build things from nothing for six months now. I don’t think you know how to fail at something you actually care about.”

He’s quiet again. Then he reaches for me. Pulls me into his side. We sit there for a while — not talking, not needing to.

It turns into something else eventually, the way it does when one of us has been carrying too much all week and the talking only gets us partway there. I know his body as well as I know his silences now — where he holds the tension, how to work it loose, when he needs slow and when he needs me to take over entirely so his brain finally stops running the same loop. Tonight it’s slow. Unhurried, the two of us taking our time with each other in a way that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the specific relief of being fully present in a body instead of trapped in your own head. Afterward he’s looser in a way words alone never quite get him to — his shoulders down, his breathing even, the particular quiet of a man who’s finally stopped bracing for something.

I think about how different this is from every relationship I’ve ever watched other people have. The specific quiet luxury of being someone’s actual pressure valve instead of one more person they have to perform fine for.

“Thank you,” he says, eventually, into my hair.

“For what?”

“For not telling me it’s going to be fine either.” A pause. “You just told me the actual mechanics of it. Foot position. Fundamentals.”

I laugh. “I did not say mechanics.”

“You said the equivalent.”

“I said contingency plans. That’s different.”

“Barely.”

I elbow him, and he catches my wrist, and pulls me down onto the bed properly, and for a while neither of us says anything at all.

“So,” Cash says, at Sunday brunch, apropos of absolutely nothing. “Anyone else notice Mercer’s been doing laundry more?”

I nearly choke on my coffee.

“What?” June asks, entirely reasonably, since this is a genuinely strange opening line for a Sunday.

“His laundry. It’s just — there’s more of it. And some of it’s not his size.” Cash says this with the deep seriousness of a man presenting forensic evidence, gesturing with his fork for emphasis. “I did laundry Thursday. There was a sweater in the dryer. It was not a Theo Mercer sweater. Theo Mercer does not own lavender.”

“Maybe it’s Wyatt’s,” Sloane offers, entirely too smoothly.

“Wyatt doesn’t wear lavender either. I’ve lived with these men for three years. I know their color palettes.”

“Fascinating detective work,” Beau says, not looking up from his plate.

“I’m just saying.” Cash points his fork around the table like he’s building a case. “Something’s going on. I have theories.”

“Do you?” I manage. My voice comes out approximately normal, which I consider a personal victory.

“I have several theories.” He holds up a finger. “Theory one: Theo’s developed a secret passion for pastel knitwear and is too proud to admit it.”

“Compelling,” Beau says.

“Theory two: somebody’s leaving clothes at Raven House with some regularity, and that somebody has taste. Unlike everyone currently at this table.”

“Rude,” Wyatt says. First word he’s said all brunch.

“Present company excluded, obviously.” Cash surveys the table with satisfaction, clearly enjoying himself far too much. “I’m not naming names. I’m just saying the laundry doesn’t lie.”

“There’s also,” Wren adds, deadpan, not looking up from her eggs, “a second toothbrush in that bathroom. Purple. Nobody in this house uses a purple toothbrush.”

Cash points at her, delighted. “Thank you. A witness. See, this is why I trust Wren. She notices things.”

“I notice you’re all being ridiculous,” June mutters.

“I’m simply cataloguing evidence.”