Evie pulls back. “Can we go upstairs? I don’t want to look at the bakery right now.”
Darlene’s face softens immediately. “Go.”
“You should come too.”
“I will after I close up the back and call Nara about this shoulder before she hears from somebody else and kicks down my door.”
“Darlene—”
“Go upstairs, honey. Let the giant hover at you. It’ll make him useful.”
I help Evie up the stairs though she insists she can walk. Her apartment smells like vanilla, rain-damp fabric, and the faint trace of our last night together. That scent hits me hard. Safety. Intimacy. The place where she touched my scars and made loneliness feel survivable.
She sits on the edge of the couch and removes her wet shoes with trembling fingers.
I kneel in front of her. “Let me.”
She gives me a weak smile. “You don’t have to treat me like glass.”
“No.” I ease one shoe off and set it aside. “Glass breaks more quietly.”
Her eyes fill.
Damn it.
“I am sorry,” I say.
“That was actually kind of beautiful in the worst way.”
“I should improve.”
“Not tonight.”
I remove the other shoe. She reaches for my face with both hands, and I go still. Her thumbs brush rainwater from my jaw.
“You came in like a nightmare,” she whispers.
“I frightened you.”
“Not for me.” Her mouth trembles. “For him. For everyone between you and him.”
“I would have stopped.”
“Would you?”
I do not answer.
She nods once, not accusing. Understanding. “That scares me.”
“It scares me too.”
The truth changes the room.
She leans forward until her forehead rests against mine. I breathe her in. Sugar, rain, fear fading slowly under trust.
“I don’t want to lose you to whatever this is,” she says.
“You will not.”
