Page 45 of The Final Cut

His tail flicks.

I leave him on the bed with a bowl of water on the floor and his litter tucked in the bathroom corner.

Downstairs, coffee smells sharp and heavenly. Deacon stands in the kitchen.

For one second, I stop on the bottom step.

He looks like he has not slept. Black shirt, dark jeans, damp hair pushed back from his face, gray eyes shadowed at the edges. He holds a mug in one hand and a phone in the other. His gaze lifts to me, and something in my chest squeezes despite my better judgment.

“You’re here,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Nash?”

“With Cal.”

The answer lands before the rest of me can brace.

I step fully into the kitchen. “How is he?”

“Sleeping peacefully.”

My throat tightens. “That’s what nurses say when they don’t want to promise anything.”

“It is what Nash said after standing beside his bed for forty minutes and terrifying two residents into improving their bedside manner.”

The image cracks something open in me.

Nash at Cal’s bedside, making doctors explain themselves, turning his terrifying focus toward keeping my father alive. Nash staying where I cannot. Nash watching a man who raised me because he swore Cal would not be alone.

I breathe through it.

Deacon sets his mug down and crosses to me. Ever goes still at my back, but he does not interfere.

Deacon stops close enough that I have to tip my chin to meet his eyes. “He’s okay, Reva. There’s no decline. His vitals are guarded but stable. They’re continuing the sedation. Nash is there. Cal is not alone.”

The words are neat and precise because he knows I need them that way.

“Delia?” I ask.

His face gives me the answer before his mouth does. “Nothing confirmed.”

My stomach drops. “Then she’s still with Isabel.”

“For now.” His gaze falls to my mouth, then returns to my eyes. “Good morning, Little Ghost.”

“That’s a weird thing to say after telling me my sister is still missing.”

“Yes.”

Then he kisses me.

It is not long. It is not soft enough to be comfort or hard enough to be distraction. His mouth touches mine like a vow. When he pulls back, his thumb brushes once along my jaw.

“I brought coffee,” he says.

I swallow past the knot in my throat.