Page 41 of What We Become

“Don’t invoke him like he’s going to help. We wouldn’t even exist in this moment if he was doing a better job at rallying the troops.”

I’m still breathing too fast. My hands are still shaky. The horror is still there, waiting just outside the frame, but it’s farther back now. Muted by the fact that Holden Cross just kissed me in broad daylight in a surveillance-adjacent sedan while we were theoretically on a stakeout.

He watches my face for another beat, checking. Assessing. Making sure I’m actually back in my body and not just making jokes from inside a fresh dissociative episode.

“You good?”

I give him my best approximation of a reassuring smile, which is difficult because I’m pretty sure my face is still rebooting, and my dick is painfully hard.

“I’m here,” I say, quieter now. Less performance, more fact. “Unfortunately for everyone, especially law enforcement, I’m very resilient.”

Holden’s hand stays at my neck for one more second. Maybe two. Long enough for me to feel the heat of it all the way down my spine. Then he lets go and sits back in his seat like he didn’t just alter the chemistry of the entire fucking vehicle.

I clear my throat. “So. To recap. We’re repressing trauma with kissing now.”

“We’re not doing anything now except working.”

“Right. Of course. Absolutely. Very professional.” I look down at the phone in his hand. “Can I have my nightmare rectangle back?”

He studies me once more, then gives it over. “You going to spiral again?”

Probably. I’m still one thumbnail away from another homicidal hardware failure. But I roll my shoulders, inhale, and pull my brain back online by force.

“I’m not making any promises. But if I do, can I request a blow job next time? I think that might really help to ground me.”

Holden looks at me like he’s considering whether mercy killing is legally defensible.

“No.”

“Counteroffer,” I say, sitting up a little straighter and dragging my dignity back on with both hands. “Hand stuff?”

“Milo.”

“Okay, wow. Hostile work environment.”

But his mouth twitches. Barely. I see it anyway, because I am, among other things, a connoisseur of facial cracks in emotionally constipated men.

And because I see it, I know I’m back enough to keep going.

I unlock the phone, square my shoulders, and make myself look at the files again with the part of my brain that functions best when everything else is on fire.

The girls in those photos had names before Brock turned them into folders. If the metadata gives me even one of them, I can give something back. Not enough. Never enough. But something.

I can’t undo what happened to them. But I can make sure they stop being anonymous—and make sure the man who helped do it pays.

“Hey, Holden?”

“If this is about my dick, Milo, I swear to⁠—”

“It’s not.” I pause. “Well, it’s partially about your dick. But mostly it’s about the fact that I love you and I wanted to say it before we go back to hunting a psychopath, because this last twenty-four hours has made me realize that if I don’t say things when I feel them, I might not get another chance. So, yeah—I love you, Holden.”

The car goes quiet. Holden’s jaw works. The smirk is gone and what’s underneath it is something I’ve only seen twice—once in a kitchen when we had our “moment” with Sage, and once in the hospital this morning—and it’s the thing he hides behind the discipline and the control because if people saw it, they’d know he’s made of the same terrified, desperate material as the rest of us.

He reaches across the console and slides his hand over mine, entwining our fingers. His thumb presses once against my knuckles.

“I love you too,” he says, like it physically pains him to arrange the words in that order. Then his eyes cut back to the house. “Now shut the fuck up and let’s find this asshole.”

I grin so hard it nearly hurts. “That is, hands down, the hottest declaration of love I’ve ever received.”