Tired. Red-rimmed. Too bright in that dangerous way men got when they hadn’t slept enough and had spent too many hours losing arguments with themselves.
His gaze moved over me fast, not sexual, not casual. Checking. My hoodie. My leggings. My face. The girls’ blanket still pooled behind my feet.
Something in him loosened by half an inch.
Then he stepped inside like he had forgotten other people might exist in my apartment.
“I know it’s late,” he said, rain dripping from his hoodie onto our entry mat. “I know I shouldn’t have shown up like this, and I know you probably don’t want to see me, but I needed to say this before I lost the nerve.”
I shut the door slowly behind him.
“Easton.”
“No, let me get it out.” He dragged one wet hand through his hair, making it worse, then looked at me with an intensity that made the apartment shrink around us. “Forgiveness is tricky. I keep thinking about what I said, and the words are easy, Aura. That’s the part that’s been fucking with my head. Someone does something small, they apologize, and you say it’s fine. Mistakes happen. You’re forgiven. Clean, right?”
“Easton,” I said again, a warning this time, because my heart had already started moving toward him and I didn’t trust it.
“But this isn’t small.” His voice roughened, and he stepped farther into the kitchen without looking around. “This is huge and so fucking delicate. This is trust and love and truth, and handing that back to you is terrifying because it costs me everything. It costs me the part of myself that kept saying if I stayed angry enough, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to hope again. And I think—”
His eyes shifted over my shoulder when he heard movement.
He stopped, and I closed my eyes.
Bliss and Charm stood in the kitchen entrance, blankets around their shoulders, snacks in hand, looking absolutely unbothered by being caught eavesdropping at full volume.
Easton blinked at them. “Oh. Hey.”
Bliss lifted her hand in a tiny wave. “Hey.”
Charm held up the bowl of chocolate-covered pretzels. “We brought emotional provisions.”
Easton looked from them to me, then back to them, clearly waiting for the normal social cue where people left the room to avoid witnessing a private emotional reckoning.
Neither of them moved.
He cleared his throat. “Could you maybe give us a minute?”
“No,” Bliss said sweetly.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “B.”
Charm leaned one hip against the doorway. “The last time we watched you two talk, she came home looking like a haunted widow in a referee costume.”
Bliss raised both hands when Easton’s face tightened. “Hold on. We know she hurt you too. We are very aware of that. We have discussed accountability. We have grown as women.”
Charm nodded. “Painfully.”
“But if this is groveling,” Bliss continued, pointing between him and me, “we’re going to watch it.”
Easton stared at her.
I stared at her.
Charm ate a pretzel.
“This isn’t groveling,” Easton said slowly.
Bliss narrowed her eyes. “That’s disappointing branding.”
