Evan’s expression crumbles, as though he hates hearing that word from me, and his hand moves up to delicately grip my chin.
“No, baby. Don’t.” His voice roughens. “Never apologize for protecting Elle.”
The air leaves me in a shaky rush that hurts more than breathing in.
“She’s definitely okay?” I need to hear him say it again.
“She’s okay.” His thumb moves against my knuckles. “She didn’t see anything. She’s just… she’s shaken.”
“And Remi?” I whisper.
Something in his face shifts. It’s small, but I see it. A tightening at the edge of his mouth, and his fingers press a little firmer around mine before he answers.
“She’s with her family.”
Family.
My brain moves slower than it should, and I swallow against the burn in my throat.
“You mean with Colt and the kids?”
The room suddenly feels very quiet, and Evan’s gaze drops to our joined hands. He inhales once, steadying himself, and when he looks back at me, I realize his eyes are more red-rimmed than what I remember.
“He didn’t make it.”
He says it gently, like he’s trying to avoid any distress for me, but the monitor spikes again anyway, a sharp staccato thatsounds wrong in the stillness. My lungs forget what they’re meant to do, and for a second, I can’t pull air in at all.
He didn’t make it.
I see Colt leaning back in a chair at the station, bantering with Evan while Beck pretends to ignore them. I see him on the ice. At Flora’s. With his kids. So in love every time he looked at Remi. I hear him teasing Mason, his laugh bright and alive.
Alive.
That word isn’t supposed to sit beside dead, not for Colt Lawson.
Evan shifts closer when my breath stutters, and his other hand comes up, brushing lightly along my hairline, careful of the tape and the lines and whatever else they’ve attached to me.
“I’m here,” he says.
My eyes burn, but the tears don’t come the way I expect them to. It’s quieter than that, a hollowing out somewhere deep inside that has nothing to do with smoke.
“What happened?”
“The roof collapsed,” he says, not looking away. “Colt was venting when it went.”
“And you were outside,” I say.
“Just,” he whispers .
I remember his arms around me, the way the world narrowed to his chest, and the sound of his breathing in my ear. I remember the heat licking at my back and the way his hands wouldn’t let me go.
My eyes drift back to his hand now, where it’s still wrapped around mine. The split across his knuckles looks worse now that I’m fully awake. Red and swollen across the skin like whatever he hit fought back.
“What happened to your hand?”
Evan glances down briefly, like he forgot it was there at all. “Nothing.”
I study him for another second. “You hit something.”
