Page 64 of What We Burn

“It’s fucked is what it is.”

“Also that.”

He turns in my arms and reaches for me. Pulls me against his chest and wraps himself around me, chin on top of my head, and for a minute we just sit there, holding each other, two people who love each other, and who both love a man who doesn’t know how to let himself be loved.

I pull back enough to look at him. “We don’t have to figure this out tonight.”

“I know.”

I run my thumb along the edge of his jaw, rough with stubble. “I love you, Micah.”

His eyes close on instinct, like he’s preparing for impact. “I love you too, baby girl.”

I kiss his cheek, then the side of his mouth, then work my way to the spot just below his ear that makes his whole body stutter. He sighs, pulls me onto his lap, and when I sink down onto him this time, neither of us is chasing anything. It’s slow. Unhurried. His forehead against mine, his hands steady on my hips, both of us breathing the same air.

No demons. No ghosts. Just us. And Eli’s jacket on the back of the door, where neither of us looks.

NINETEEN

MICAH

Ican’t sleep. My body’s spent—wrung out, used up, every muscle loose—but my brain is running laps, circling the same thoughts like a dog that won’t lie down.

Sage is curled beside me, one hand tucked under her cheek, breathing in that slow, even rhythm that means the nightmares haven’t come yet. Her hair is mussed and tangled, and I want to sweep it back, kiss the bare stretch of her shoulder, sweep my tongue between her thighs and lose myself in the taste of her yet again.

Instead, I lie on my back and listen to her breathe, keeping count of each inhale, exhale, the tiny sounds she makes at the edges of her sleep. The sound a comfort because it means she’s still here.

It’s been a month since the attack now. The bruising on her throat has gone from black to a yellow-green you’d have to be looking for. I’m always looking for it. It’s the thought my brain circles whenever I close my eyes—how close. It shudders through my muscles, kicks my heart into a sharp pulse in my wrists. One minute longer and that rope would have claimed her. She’d be gone.

My stomach knots, my throat aches.

I force myself to swallow.

She’s not gone. She’s here.

She’s here.

As soon as my nervous system is convinced she’s okay, my mind jumps to Eli. I can’t let go of him either—of my hurt, my anger.

The longing.

Of the way we used to sleep, shoulder to shoulder after a job, his breath fan-warm in the crook of my arm—years of letting it be just what it was, never naming it out loud. Admitting it to Sage should have lanced the wound, drained the pressure, let me breathe.

It didn’t.

If anything, it’s worse. Because now my anger has company. Now there’s grief sitting next to it, and guilt sitting next to that, and underneath it all is a want so old and so stupid that I should have suffocated it years ago.

I ease out of bed. Sage doesn’t stir. I pull on my boxers, grab my phone off the nightstand out of habit, and pad downstairs barefoot, avoiding the creaking stairs.

The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove—Holden and Knox are both still at work, and we leave this on until everyone is present and accounted for.

I fill the kettle. Pull out the chamomile.

I’m waiting for the water to boil when I realize I’m not alone.

There’s a shape at the kitchen island—curled, hunched, all of him drawn in like a wire wound too tight. Eli, in a faded T-shirt and sweats. There’s a mug in front of him, both hands around it, but he’s not drinking. Just sitting, eyes fixed on the dark window over the sink as though something might be staring back.

I don’t flip on the overhead. The island light is enough to cast both of us in half-shadow, blurring out the worst parts of our faces. He glances up when I lock eyes with him, but doesn’t move. The last time we were in this kitchen late at night, we were huddled over the counter eating Gloria’s banana bread and hoping it wasn’t poisoned. The night before that, I stood in the garage watching the guys slap the hell out of him because he thought he deserved it.