Page 54 of What We Burn

“To a lovely funeral,” I murmur around a bite exploding with brown sugar. “I hope she bakes for that, too.”

When we finish, Micah wraps the remaining loaf back in foil, and Holden wipes the crumbs from the counter.

We drift back toward our respective beds. Micah goes first, tossing over his shoulder, “If I die in my sleep, tell my mom she was right about everything.”

Holden’s right after him, but pauses long enough to clap Eli on the shoulder—a heavy-handed reassurance, maybe, or the brotherly gesture of men who’d rather bleed than talk about what hurts.

Knox waits for me at the edge of the kitchen, posts himself in the hallway like a sentinel. Eli lingers at the counter, the empty glass turning slow wet circles under his hand.

I stop on the threshold, looking at the both of them—the man at my back, the one at the counter. Neither speaks at first. Then Eli, in a voice soft enough that the words have to cross the whole room to reach me, says, “Sleep well, little savage.”

There’s a knot in my chest, strange and tight, and I don’t know if my body wants to cry or punch or both.

I press my lips together. “I haven’t forgiven you yet, Eli.”

He flinches. It’s small, but I see it—the quick scrunch at the bridge of his nose, the way his eyes flick down to the counter like there’s an urgent message in the pattern of the wood grain.

Then, softer, I say, “But I’m glad you’re here.”

He looks up. Sometimes his face is just a face: handsome, symmetrical, the kind of classroom heartthrob there’s a market for on teacher meme Instagrams. And sometimes he looks at me and I see the man who cleaned blood from my face, who sat vigil in the hospital, the man who keeps making me coffee even when I don’t speak to him, who fucked up and knows he fucked up so thoroughly he can feel it in every cell. That’s the version staring at me now.

He nods, silent.

I turn away and walk past Knox without looking up, but his arm wraps around my middle before I can even reach the base of the stairs. He doesn’t just pull me in; he bends at the knees and scoops me up, one arm under my ass, the other banded over my shoulders, lifting me clean off the ground in a single, tidal movement.

“Knox—”

He grunts, the syllable vibrating against my hip. It’s both hey and I’ve got you, all compressed into one sound.

I hook my arms around his neck.

“Where are we going?” I whisper.

“Bed.” His mouth is level with my ear. “Mine tonight.”

I rest my head against his chest. “Always.”

SIXTEEN

ELI

It’s the gasp that wakes me. Up the stairs, through the open door—a tearing inhale, then the creak of a bed taking weight as someone sits up fast.

I’m off the couch with my feet on the floor before I know I’ve moved. And then I stay exactly there, because there is no version of this where I’m the one who goes up those stairs.

Low voices. Knox, saying whatever it is Knox says. The house settles.

Monday morning, and it’s summer. No circle time. No calendar. No five-year-olds pouring through the door like someone tipped over a barrel of noise. Just weeks of empty mornings stretching out in front of me with nothing to cage the thing I keep bolted down.

I miss the classroom. Which is a hell of a thing to admit about a job that pays me to wrangle small humans through their letters. But the kids are the anchor. Six hours a day where I’m not a man who ties nooses or stands on the wrong side of doors. Just a guy reading stories about hungry caterpillars and putting on funny voices.

At the time, the voice in my head was telling me I just needed a break. To rest. But the real reason was that I wanted her. Wanted to spend endless moments with her—slow ones, stupid ones, the kind that don’t belong to men like me. Mornings. Grocery runs. Coffee gone cold while I buried my face between her legs . . .

But that was before the rope. Before I blew everything up in the name of protecting her. Before my actions got her hurt.

I scrub a hand over my face and sit up slow, elbows on knees. Holden’s living room is blue-gray with early light. The house is quiet in that fragile way it only is before everybody starts moving. The couch creaks under me. My back is tight from sleeping on it. I deserve that too.

I could sleep at my own place. It’s twenty minutes away and it has an actual bed instead of Holden’s couch, which is built for a man eight inches shorter than me. But I can’t make myself step away from wherever Sage is. So I fold the blanket every morning, stack the pillows, and pretend I’m not a stray who’s been allowed to sleep inside the house.