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She pulls him into a hug. “Thank you.”

He hugs her back without a second thought, and something in my chest catches. God, this man. This beautiful, beautiful thoughtful man. How could I have been so stupid to risk everything?

Chapter 13

Saint

Ihadn’t realised how much I missed this version of myself until I heard my own laugh carrying across the courtyard. For fifteen months now I’ve felt like a ghost haunting my own life. Smiling at the right moments, saying the right things, floating from task to task with a glass of Rioja permanently attached to my hand while something inside me quietly dimmed. But here, tucked into the warmth of the courtyard, sat around an open fire, I feel awake again. Warm with wine and attention and the easy rhythm of conversation.

Every time I finish one story, somebody asks for another. They laugh in all the right places too, proper laughter, not the brittle socialite sort I’d grown used to. I’d forgotten how intoxicating it was holding people captive like this, spinning chaos into entertainment.

Ember listens to me like I'm fascinating, wide green eyes and a fixed smile. It is terribly endearing. I like Bri enormously already too. Beautiful, sharp-tongued, and emotionally chaotic. My favourite kind of woman. Then there’s Luna and Lennie. They are what people secretly hope love becomes if you manage to survive long enough. The way he looks at her across a room is sheer magic.

Even Jax has surprised me. The man sitting across from me doesn’t match the one I’ve carried around in my head for over a year. Maybe he has changed. Maybe it’s an act. Or maybe it’s easier to be kind when you’ve forgotten the people whose lives stopped that day.

Chapter 14

Jax

Most of the others have drifted off to bed over the last hour, leaving the courtyard quieter now, softened by the crackle of the firepit and the occasional clinking of glasses. I lean back into the sofa cushions, warm from the whisky slowly working through my system. Not drunk. Not even close. Just… Relaxed.

Bri sits next to me, Lennie opposite, with one ankle crossed over his knee. His broad shoulders loose beneath a blue shirt while Luna curls sleepily into his side. Of everyone here, he’s the one I’ve bonded with the most in our short time. We spent hours this afternoon talking training after discovering we were both early risers and mildly obsessive about running. It’s a new habit for me, but Lennie is ex-army and a running expert apparently. He’s given me tips on endurance running that actually make sense instead of sounding like something ripped from a fitness influencer’s podcast.

At one-point, mid-sentence about tapering mileage before a long run, he trailed off completely, eyes drifting across the courtyard to where Luna sat laughing with Bri and Ember. Something crossed his face I couldn’t quite name, there and gone before I could ask about it. “Sorry,” he'd said, shaking his head. “Miles away. Where was I?”

I let it go, casually suggesting we go for a run together in the morning, which he was enthusiastic about. I’m looking forward to it—he has that rare sort of steadiness about him that makes me feel calmer just being in his presence.

“You’re nursing that thing like it’s radioactive,” Bri observes from beside me, eyeing my whisky glass.

“I’m appreciating it,” I correct. Smiling down at her.

“You’ve had the same drink for almost an hour.”

I stare at the amber liquid catching the firelight, huffing a quiet laugh—she's not wrong. A year ago, I would’ve swallowed three doubles without tasting them. Back then everything had been loud, fast, and out of control all the time.

Lennie had shrugged earlier when I admitted I’d avoided alcohol completely since things got bad. “Running away from something gives it power. Learn to live alongside it instead,” he’d said simply. “One whisky doesn’t make you the man you used to be.”

Hearing it phrased that way untangled something in my head. Like maybe recovery doesn’t have to mean fear. Maybe I don’t need to spend the rest of my life running from every version of myself that ever existed.

So now I sit here slowly drinking expensive Scottish whisky beneath the stars, actually tasting it for once, as Bri laugh so hard at one of Luna’s stories, she pretty much snorts wine through her nose. She hits my arm playfully as I guffaw at the sight. It’s nice, this natural camaraderie. We’ve stopped trying to annoy each other—accidentally becoming friends instead. Real ones, I think. I enjoy her company, she’s sharp and chaotic and far funnier than she realises.

It’s strange, sitting here by the fire with these people—who I didn’t even know this morning—it feels natural, familiar even.

“Are either of you attending the after party on Saturday?” Luna asks, tucking her feet beneath her as she looks between Bri and me.

Bri groans softly. “Not for me, I imagine it will be loud and tiring after a whole day trading.”

“Not for me either,” I say, shaking my head.

Luna's face lights up. “Grand. The others aren’t going either, I asked earlier. So I was thinking we could have our own little thing here? I spotted a pizza oven in the kitchen earlier, we could ask Enzo to have pizzas and drinks ready for us, and maybe a little music. Nothing too crazy.”

“That sounds perfect,” Bri and I respond in unison.

Lennie chuckles into his whisky. “You two are exactly the same, you know that?”

“Absolutely not,” we say at the same time again, making Luna snort softly.

Lennie pushes himself slowly to his feet with a quiet sigh, holding a hand out automatically for Luna. “Right,” he announces. “We’ll leave you kids to it; we need our beauty sleep.”