Page 219 of What We Burn

“Sleeping. She and Milo spent an hour arguing about where Frank should live before Knox put him in a glass vase and fed him cracker crumbs.”

“Guess that means we should add fish food to the grocery list.”

“Holden already has.”

Micah huffs a quiet laugh. “Of course he has. Probably researched the best brand available too. Frank will have a fully decked out tank and his own shelf by Friday.”

“Don’t give him ideas.”

“Holden doesn’t need ideas. He’s a provider. He just does.”

The laugh that comes out of me is small but real, and it loosens something behind my ribs that’s been wound tight since Saturday night. Since I stood in a dead man’s hallway and listened to our girl open a stranger’s wrists with the steady hands of someone who’d been doing it for years.

Micah turns his head on the cushion and studies me. He’s always been the one who reads rooms. Reads people. Right now he’s reading me, and I can feel it like a hand on the back of my neck.

“You’re going to destroy your back sleeping on this thing,” he says, gesturing to where my pillow and blanket are still folded over the arm.

“My back is fine.”

“Your back is sixty percent spite and that has a shelf life.” He reaches over and prods the cushion under my shoulder blade. “This sofa is decorative, Eli. It was not built for sleeping.”

“I’ve been managing.”

“There’s a queen bed downstairs that you’ve been ignoring for weeks.”

“I don’t like the guest room. All those unsolved case files make it feel like I’m surrounded by ghosts.”

He settles back against the couch. “Then come sleep in mine.”

I lift my head. Look at him.

“I’m not even in there half the time,” he says, as though this is a logistical matter. “When I’m on close, I don’t get in until morning. It’s a good mattress. You look like death. This isn’t a complicated offer.”

It is.

We’ve shared beds after sex and after operations, when exhaustion made the decision for us. This is Micah asking before either of us is bleeding, fucking, or falling apart.

Something about the straightforwardness of it makes me want to fight. Old habit. I’m better at penance than mercy. “You don’t have to⁠—”

“I know I don’t have to.” He tilts his head. “Eli. It’s a bed, not an engagement ring. You can accept lumbar support without needing the prelude of fucking.”

I laugh before I can stop it. It surprises us both.

Micah grins, satisfied. Flicks a glance at the TV and then at me. “Try it for a night. Worst case, you hate it and go back to self-flagellation in the morning. But I’m betting you’ll sleep through an earthquake.”

I want to protest. Old habit again. But he leaves the meaning of the offer untouched and waits for me to choose.

“All right,” I say. “I’ll try.”

“Good.”

I sit up. Run both hands through my hair and try to remember what normal feels like. It keeps sliding out of reach. “How was your shift?”

“Long. Good tips. Some newbie asked me to make something ‘adventurous,’ and I gave him a Last Word and charged him for the premium gin because he was wearing a fleece vest with a yacht logo.” He pauses. “He tipped twenty percent.”

“Blessed are the fleece vests, for they shall inherit the earth,” I say.

Micah flashes teeth. “Let them try.”