Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
I break the watch only when I know his rhythms. When I peel off into the cold, my phone buzzes again.
DUKE: Good pull. We’ll run his comms pattern and the number block. Back off for now.
GUNNER: You hungry? Because I am starving and I assume you’re a camel.
I need to check on Mel.
GUNNER: I knew I liked you. That was a test, you passed.
I drive home through a town that’s wrapped itself in lights to make the dark look intentional. The wedge will be under the door. The tree will be quiet in the corner. Two women I care about will be arguing about which of the seven cheeses counts as dinner.
The case is a knot I can untie. It will take time, and discipline, and the ability to sit still while someone thinks he’s the hunter. I can do all of that.
The other knot—the one labeled January—I’ll learn. I can build a life the way I clear a room: methodical, with good backup, with the kind of care that makes the next moment possible.
For now, I turn onto her street and feel my shoulders drop at the sight of her window lit warm. I’m not leaving this bubble. I’m thickening its perimeter.
18
Melanie
It’s after midnight, the kind of quiet where the fridge hum sounds like a song. The tree’s glow spills down the hall, soft and gold. I pad into the kitchen in socks, because sleep took one look at my brain and said “no thanks.” I put on the tea kettle even though I won’t wait for it. I just like the promise of it.
The wedge is still under the door. I’ve made peace with it. It's our little triangle of control in a world that refuses to be linear.
Lucas appears in the doorway, low sweats, no shirt, sleep-tousled hair, the careful way he fills a room without setting off any alarms. He checks the hallway with that glance that looks like nothing and sees everything, then leans against the doorframe and watches me pretend to wrangle a tea bag.
“Insomnia?” he asks, voice low.
“Just thinking,” I say, then roll my eyes at myself. “Okay, spiraling.”
He steps in, takes the mug from my hand, adds hot water like it’s an intervention. “Hydration,” he says, because it’s our bit now.
“Captain Safety,” I murmur back.
We stand shoulder to shoulder, listening to the tiny pops of the heating pipes and the faraway swoosh of a car on wet road. My reflection in the window looks steadier next to his.
“What’s in your head?” he asks after a while, soft and easy, like a question I can set down without it breaking.
I toy with a lemon slice. “Everything. Mercer. The appointment. One centimeter.” I hold up a finger like I’m trying to show him what one centimeter looks like even though I’m not even sure. “Also… January.” The word tilts the room.
He doesn’t flinch. He just sets the mug down, turns me so I’m facing him, and braces his hands on the counter behind me like he’s making sure the kitchen doesn’t try to run away.
“Denver scares me less than loving you wrong,” he says.
The line lands between us like a carefully placed brick—solid, true, not heavy in the way that hurts but heavy in the way that holds.
I blink. “Say that again.”
“I can plan Denver,” he says, eyes steady on mine. “Gate numbers, rotations, a Saint Pierce post if Dean will play ball. Logistics are legible to me. Loving you?” His mouth tips, not quite a smile. “There’s no manual for that. And I don’t want to improvise where you, and the baby, are the things I can’t replace.”
My throat goes tight in that inconvenient way. “You won’t.”
“I might,” he says, honest to a fault. “If I rush. If I assume. If I make you carry the parts of me that should be my job.” He lowers his head until our foreheads touch, the softest press. “I am more afraid of being a postcard dad and a holiday boyfriend than I am of a winter transfer. That’s the truth.”
My fingers curl in his shirt, because I am, maddeningly, equal parts strong and soft. “I’m afraid of needing you,” I admit, and there it is—the thing I’ve been orbiting. “It feels like handing you the only parachute. I’ve been training for solo landings my whole life. Needing you means… what if you’re wheels up and I’m here holding an empty bag?”
He exhales, a sound that holds both ache and relief. “Then we pack two,” he says simply. “Two parachutes. Two calendars. Two sets of shoulders. We make redundancies for the heart the way we make them for everything else.”
A laugh escapes me, watery and ridiculous. “You’re romantic in such a weird, tactical way.”
“Thank you?” he offers, and that earns him a real laugh.
The baby shifts like they want in on the conversation. He slides a palm to my belly, and we both go quiet at the press of a little heel or elbow against his hand. His eyes go glassy for a second, and mine do, too.