"All of them?"
"Every one of them, I hope. It's going to take me a minute. The local PD is bought, so I can't send anyone in without burning my guy and bringing too much heat back on us. I'm building it slow. But yes. All of them."
He shakes his head, the edges of his lips tipping up slightly. "You're not afraid of anything."
"That's not true, baby."
"It's true from where I'm sitting. You went into that facility for me. You're going back in for them. You paid for an apartment so a stranger we were locked next to has somewhere to call home. You—you just do the hard thing. You don't hesitate. You don't second-guess. You don't even think it's brave, you just think it's the next thing that needs doing."
"Maxie—"
"I would never have done any of that. Not for anyone. Not even for myself, I don’t think. I'd have spent the rest of my life telling myself it was too dangerous and going to bed on time."
"That's not—"
"It is. I'm telling you it is. I look at you and I—" He stops. His thumb is still at my cheekbone. He has gotten quieter. "I'm envious. Is what it is. I'm envious of how you exist."
I can't speak for a second.
The fire pops in the hearth.
He is in my lap, more or less, half-curled against me, his hand at my face, his eyes on mine, and he has just laid out a version of me I don't entirely recognize and called it brave.
I have never thought of myself as brave. I have thought of myself as the youngest brother who got handed a list and is working through it. I have thought of myself as the one who was worse before any of this, who has a long way to go to be worth what he just said about me.
But hemeantit.
He’s sitting in my lap, looking directly at me, and still saying I’m brave.
I bring my hand up to cover his where it rests on my cheek. Hold it there.
"You exist plenty brave on your own, baby."
"Bane—"
"I mean it."
"You don't have to say it back—"
"I'm not saying it back. I'm telling you what's true."
His eyes shine. His mouth opens to argue and then doesn't.
I look at him.
The house has gone fully quiet—just the occasional foundation settle and the whirr of the A/C. The fire pops in the hearth. He is so warm under my arm. So light against my side.
I'm, I notice, so fuckinghappy.
Not the way I'm happy when something works in a deal. Not the way I'm happy when I've outmaneuvered someone who deserved it. Not even the way I've been happy the past two months as a man with a bonded omega in his house and his life.
This is something else.
I look at him.
Really look. The way I haven't let myself look at him with all the lights on and all my defenses down maybe ever. His hair is still damp at the ends. There's a freckle just under his left eye I have never noticed in this much detail before, faint, the size of a pinhead, the kind of thing you'd only catch sitting this close. His lashes are too long—they always have been—and right now they're wet, because he was almost crying a minute ago and didn't, and the wet has spiked them dark against his cheeks.
His mouth.
