I could walk into the living room right now, take his hand, and tell him what just happened in the kitchen. He’d choose me.I know that. But he’d choose me the way he chooses everything — by putting himself last and going straight to solving the problem.
And that means Mason.
He’d do it right here, tonight, in front of everyone, with Luca’s playlist still going. He’d make it physical, too, because he told me what he’d like to do to Harrison, and I doubt he’d spare Mason the same treatment.
Then the others would pick sides, and it would become a thing that grinds down the team he now leads, and he’d be the one it costs most. Then the grapevine would work the way it always works — sideways looks, whispers I’d half-hear — and I’d become a topic of gossip.
No.
I refuse to be the story again.
I’d rather carry the thing myself than hand it over to be solved by others again.
So I’m not going to tell him.
The irony isn’t lost on me. A few days ago, I stood in his kitchen and told him he didn’t have to carry everything alone. Now I’m in this one doing exactly what he does, but as I push my hands back into the water until they’re red and do the dishes it doesn’t make the decision wrong.
The whole time I’m washing the dishes, it feels like I’m scrubbing away the girl I’d only recently dared to become again. What’s left in her place is the cleaner, more polished Halden Girl.
When I’m done, my eyes are burning as much as my hands, and a few tears come, hot and angry, a sort of grief for the version of myself I’d barely started getting back. I turn the cold tap on and splash my face until it looks like nothing’s been taken from me.
Then I walk back into the living room.
It’s quieter now. Theo is on the floor leaning against the couch, Ivy is sitting cross-legged on the rug with a beer, Luca has put on something slow, and Niko is reading something on his phone with the half-attention of a man who is leaving soon.
Mason is in the armchair by the window, beer balanced on his knee.
When he sees me he smirks.
And then Rowan sees me. His whole face changes, and the warmth is so immediate that my mouth opens to tell him — about Mason, about all of it — but then the muscle memory holds, and I close it.
I cross to him and reclaim the space under his arm that’s been mine all night. His arm comes around me, his hand settling on my thigh, his thumb resting over the denim where he knows the birthmark hides.
His thumb traces the same circle it always does, and I hold still because the alternative is turning into him completely, pressing my whole body against his chest and making this room disappear. If I do that, I will say something I just can’t.
He doesn’t know.
He can’t.
“Everything okay?” he says.
“Yeah.” I press my face into the curve of his neck and close my eyes. “Just tired.”
He kisses the top of my head and pulls me closer.
For the rest of the night, I laugh at the right moments, and almost nobody notices. The only time someone does, it’s Ivy — one look, a beat too long — and I give her the smile that ends questions.
Rowan’s thumb keeps moving on my thigh.
I cannot feel it.
twenty-one
ROWAN
Sloane ison the couch with her laptop open, and I have no idea what’s wrong.
I’m at the kitchen counter on a stool, my own laptop in front of me, and the apartment is quiet in a way that feels new and wrong. Her feet are tucked under her, her hair is up, she’s reading something on the screen, and she looks beautiful.
