Page 51 of Bloom in Darkness

“I was getting there.”

I look down at the pale scar along the outer side of Caelan’s knee. “A knife did that?”

Caelan shifts his leg, showing me where the scar disappears around the side. “The blade went through near the joint. The muscles around it tighten when I’ve been on it too much.” I squeeze a small amount of cream onto my fingers and start above the scar instead of directly over it.

The muscles along his thigh are tighter than I expected. I work slowly around the joint, following the places that make him stop bracing against my hands instead of digging at the sorest point, and when my thumb finds a hard knot higher along his thigh, his breath leaves him in a long exhale.

“You’ve been compensating for this all week.” I keep one hand around his calf while I work.

Caelan starts to straighten. “I walk every week, Astra.”

“You were favoring it when we left the club too.” I press my thumb into the knot above his knee until his next breath comes out slowly. “Stop pretending I imagined it.”

Caelan lets me move his leg without trying to control the position himself. I shift his heel farther onto the coffee table and work my thumb into the tight muscle above his knee until his leg grows heavier in my hands.

I look over at Bryn. “How long has he been pretending the knee is fine?”

Bryn watches from the chair opposite us. “Three days.”

Caelan gives him an exhausted look. “You’re enjoying this.”

“No.” Bryn’s gaze drops to my hands on Caelan’s leg. “I’m enjoying him making you sit down.”

Caelan mutters something under his breath, but he doesn’t ask me to stop. The more I work, the easier it becomes to feel where the muscles have tightened to protect the joint. My hand slides higher along Caelan’s thigh to follow one of those knots. I’m standing between his spread knees now, one hand braced high on his leg while he looks up at me with his shoulders finally loose against the sofa.

“Am I hurting you?” I ask, keeping my thumb against the tight muscle.

Caelan watches my hand move higher along his thigh before looking at me. “No. That’s not the problem.”

My pulse jumps hard enough that I feel it in my throat. Caelan lifts one hand and catches the hem of Bryn’s oversized shirt between his fingers without pulling, giving me every chance to step away before his thumb moves once over the cotton near my thigh.

“You’re very serious when you take care of someone,” Caelan says.

I keep working at the tight muscle above his knee. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I know.” Caelan’s thumb shifts once against the hem of my shirt. “I’m trying to behave.”

Heat crawls across my face, and my hand slides another inch higher before I catch myself. Bryn makes a low sound from across the room, and when I look over, he’s watching both of us with the same calm acceptance he had when I first put my hands on Caelan.

Caelan’s thumb stays against the cotton near my thigh, and my hand remains higher on his leg than it needs to be. Bryn’s phone buzzes, and the second he reads the screen he pushes away from the chair. “They need me at the Forge by eight.”

Caelan’s hand drops away from my thigh. “Who?”

Bryn looks up from the phone. “Marrow.” Caelan sits straighter and reaches for his own phone.

I step back and wipe the remaining cream from my fingers. Caelan looks at me before unlocking his phone. “I can stay here with you and have somebody else cover the box.” I’m still looking at Bryn, already on his feet with his phone in hand.

I've smelled this part of him before: blood on his clothes, sweat and antiseptic after late nights, the faint metallic edge that follows him home when a fight went long. I know it exists, but I've never watched him walk toward it. "Can I come?"

Bryn crosses the room until only a few feet separate us. “It’s not training, Astra. People get hurt.”

I nod. “I know.”

“Badly.” Bryn holds my eyes like he needs to be sure I understand him.

“I know that too.” I hold his gaze through the silence until he finally looks toward the windows instead of at me. “You think I’m going to see you differently.”

I move closer and touch his forearm. "I already know you hurt people, Bryn. I know what you're like here, and I know how you take care of me. I want to know this part too instead of sitting in the house imagining it."