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Her eyebrows shoot up.

I freeze.

Sweet starts laughing.

“Oh my God.”

“Forget I said that.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I panicked.”

“I know.”

“You gonna punish me?”

“I might tell your grandmothers.”

“That is cruel.”

“You survived Razor.”

“Barely.”

“Mourning cannot be worse.”

“She buried three husbands.”

“Vesper says two and a half.”

“That does not help.”

Sweet puts her head back down.

Her laughter fades into something softer.

My hand moves along her back.

Not holding her here.

Just touching because she asked me upstairs and stayed.

Nothing is perfect.

Thank God.

Perfect things make me suspicious.

This is better.

Sweet in my bed because she chose it. Her books downstairs because she chose a future here. Mama's picture beside us with the crack still showing. My club complicated, my hands dirty, and me still the kind of man who put Razor Maddox at the bottom of a murder hole and slept fine afterward.

Morally improved does not mean morally clean.

Sweet knows that.

She chose me with her eyes open.