Page 106 of The Endless Want

Declan doesn’t rush me. That’s the first thing I notice as we begin moving through the morning. He keeps a careful, steady pace beside me, as though he’s learning the rhythm of this new version of my body—one that tires faster, one that moves differently, one that he’s suddenly, profoundly aware of.

He cooks, if it can be called that—eggs, toast, fruit. Nothing fancy, but he does it with a concentrated seriousness that makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. He plates everything awkwardly and sets it in front of me like an offering.

“Don’t laugh,” he warns.

“I wouldn’t,” I say, though a small smile fights its way out anyway.

He catches it and shakes his head, but there’s no irritation in him. No sharpness. Just that calm, grounding gravity that feels new and impossibly old all at once.

We eat in a quiet that feels strangely full, a warmth simmering beneath the surface. I keep waiting for the tension to snap, for one of us to say something wrong, but it doesn’t happen. We talk lightly about nothing—how claustrophobic the safehouse feels, how Ronan’s training sessions are a little too intense, how the coffee here is better than the compound’s.

Normal things. Human things. Things that have nothing to do with blood or politics or danger.

After breakfast, he washes the dishes while I sit on the counter, legs dangling, hand instinctively resting on my stomach. Sunlight filters in through the blinds, striping Declan’s bare shoulders with gold. Every movement he makes feels gentler than his reputation should allow, like the morning smoothed him down into something more fragile.

“Do you want to go out?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder. “Just a walk. Somewhere quiet.”

I blink, startled by how much I want that. “Is it safe?”

“No,” he says plainly. “But safer than usual. I checked the perimeter twice. And I’d be with you.”

I nod. “Okay.”

We leave through the back, slipping out into the small, fenced garden behind the safehouse. It’s nothing special—patchy grass, an old picnic table, half-dead flowers—but the morning air is crisp, and the quiet settles into my lungs like medicine. Declan walks beside me without crowding me, but without drifting too far either.

We keep walking, slow and steady. Every so often he glances at my stomach as if checking it’s still there, still real. As if the reality of it hasn’t fully sunk in for him yet. I don’t blame him. I can hardly believe it myself. “When?” he asks hesitantly.

I wonder how long he’s been holding that question back. “The last week of June.”

He exhales, long and quiet. “June,” he repeats, like he’s putting it somewhere he won’t lose it.

He stops walking then, turning to face me. The wind ruffles his hair, and for once he doesn’t smooth it back. His eyes are dark and searching, fixed entirely on me.

“I’m trying,” he says. “I know I wasn’t before. I didn’t… know how to handle any of it. You. The baby. The past.” His jaw shifts, working through the weight of it. “But I’m trying now.”

I feel the words like warm pressure behind my sternum. “I can see that,” I say softly.

He steps closer—slow, deliberate. His hand lifts as if to touch my cheek, but he hesitates. The pause is so unlike him that it tugs something deep and old inside me.

“You can,” he murmurs, “stop me if you want.”

I don’t.

His fingers graze my cheekbone, feather-light. The touch is soft enough that it shouldn’t make my breath catch, but it does. Because it’s him. Because it’s Declan. Because everything between us has always been too sharp or too sudden or too dangerous, and now there’s this—this impossibly delicate moment that feels like the first note of a song we’ve never let ourselves hear.

“Ailish,” he says quietly. “I keep thinking about what you said before. About wanting respect.”

My throat tightens. “Declan⁠—”

“No,” he interrupts gently. “Let me say this.”

He drops his hand, curling it into his fist at his side as if grounding himself. “I don’t know what I’m capable of when it comes to being a partner. Or a father. Or… anything real.” His voice is low but steady. “I’ve spent my whole life fighting. Not learning how to stay. Or talk. Or trust.”

The honesty hits like a slow, deep pulse under my skin.

“But I don’t want to fail you,” he continues. “Or the baby. I don’t want to keep hurting you. So if respect is what you need from me, you have it. You’ve always deserved it.”

“I’m asking for honesty,” I say. “For partnership. For… something that isn’t war.”