"You came for me first," she says. Not accusatory. Just… noticing. The way she notices everything.
"You were in the way."
"Ronan."
"Harper."
She looks at my hands on her shoulders. Looks back up at me. The corridor is quiet. Behind us the bar is settling, Blaze's voice rising over the noise with something that sounds like laughter, which means it's over and he won, which means tomorrow he'll be insufferable about it.
I should go check on my brothers.
I don't move.
Her hands finally slide off my forearm. But she doesn't step back, and neither do I, and the four inches between us feel like a countdown ticking down.
"One day," she says softly, "you're going to stop pretending you don't give a damn."
"Is that right."
"That's right." The ghost of a smile. "I'm a patient woman."
I let my hands drop from her shoulders. Step back. Make myself do it.
"Go find Rosa," I say. "And after this, you don't stay till close. You hear me?"
She searches my face for a long moment.
"Loud and clear," she says.
She walks back out into the bar. I watch her go—the line of her, the curve of her, the way she holds herself, and I stand in the corridor for longer than I should, getting my body back under control.
Patient woman.
God help me.
Chapter 7 – Harper
Rosa is on her feet before I fully reach the table.
"You good?" she asks, scanning me quickly, professionally, the PT in her never fully off-duty.
"I'm good."
She sits back down slowly, watching my face. "Ronan got you out fast."
"He did."
A pause. She picks up her drink, takes a sip, eyes still on me.
"You want to talk about it?" she asks carefully.
"Not really." I sit down. Pick up my own drink. My hand is steady. That's good. "But thank you."
She nods. Doesn't push. That's why I love her—she knows when to ask and when to just sit with silence.
But her eyes are smiling, just slightly, like she knows exactly what happened in that hallway even if I'm not saying it.
We sit there for a moment, the bar settling back into its normal rhythm around us. The fight's over—Blaze is at the bar grinning like he won the lottery, Stone's back on his stool like he never moved, and the three men who started it are nowhere to be seen.
