“That’s one way of putting it.”
I moved toward Calvin, set my hands on his shoulders, and said, “Can you rein it in a little andtalkto me?”
The stiff line of his shoulders melted like butter under my touch. He raised his hands, scrubbed his face, and when he looked at me again, those lines around his mouth and eyes didn’t make him look so mad anymore. Calvin looked tired. Worried. Afraid.
“Hey,” I said softly, cupping his face with one hand. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want you involved.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much.”
Calvin reached up to caress the back of my hand with the tips of his blunt fingers. “Sebastian… sometimes I think you’re the only good left in this world.”
“I’m a pretty low bar.”
“You don’t get it.” His eyes were too bright, and when he swallowed, the tendons in his neck looked about ready to snap. “You are my prince and my kingdom, and if the worst of humanity followed you home—became your grief—Ican’t…. I can’t handle that. You are the single greatest thing to ever happen to me,” he continued as big fat tears rolled down his cheeks. “I almost lost you once. I watched you get shot. I watched you bleed. You were critical and unstable and I swore I’d kill myself if—”
“Jesus Christ. Calvin, stop.” I took his face in both hands, wiping the tears with my thumbs. “I love you. I love youso much. You hear me?”
He nodded.
“There is absolutely nothing more important to me than you. But you can’t protect me from hypothetical situations.”
“They aren’t hypothetical. You have no idea how many awful people there are in this city.”
“I can hazard a guess.”
“No, baby, you can’t. The sick shit I’ve seen—my heart would break if that lived in your head rent-free.”
Calvin was going to start spiraling in a moment, and I didn’t want to have to make the executive decision to phone his therapist in the middle of the night. I looked over my shoulder for some sort of solution, but the small and tidy office offered little.
“What’s the max weight on your chair?”
“Wh-what?”
I looked at him again. “Is it one of those standard computer chairs, or does it have extra stability?”
Calvin wrapped his hand around my wrist and gently took my palm from his cheek. “Four hundred pounds, I think?”
I calculated his weight and mine, figured we’d be safe, then led Calvin around Quinn’s desk and to his. I pulled the chair out and said, “Sit down.”
He did.
I sat sideways on his lap and snaked an arm over his shoulders. Calvin wrapped his arms around my waist and held me tight. “At the start of the Bones case,” I began, keeping my voice low. “I broke—like, immediately. In front of your brother and Beth and Neil and whoever else was around. Calvin, I thought I was actually dying.”
He met my eyes.
“So I get it,” I whispered. “And I want you to understand, that if our positions were reversed—what I’ve experienced since we met—I’d do it all again and more to protect you too.”
Calvin slid one hand between my legs and gripped my inner thigh possessively.
“Can I say something else?”
“I guess.”
I shifted my arm so I could massage the knot of tension in his neck. “I’m not being asked to consult on a mystery or a homicide or—”
“No—”
