Page 49 of Priest

“I’m just saying,” he continues, entirely unrepentant. “Leather. Height. That voice. I get it.”

“You don’t get it,” I counter. “And we’re not.”

“I know, I know. Decompressing.” He sighs like I’ve personally denied him oxygen. “But damn.”

The knock this time is softer, more hesitant. Lila looks wrecked when I open the door, not physically, but like someone who’s been carrying a memory too heavy for the space she’s in. I pull her into a hug without asking, and she sinks into it like she’s been holding herself upright by sheer will all evening.

“Hey,” I murmur into her hair.

“Hey,” she answers, muffled.

Evan clears his throat loudly. “Welcome to Operation Unpack Today’s Chaos. I’m the morale officer.”

She snorts, which feels like a small victory.

We eat perched around my table, plates balanced on mismatched placemats, conversation skirting the edges of what happened without diving in yet. Lila picks at her food more than she eats. Evan talks enough for all three of us, filling the space with commentary about hospital bureaucracy, terrible vending machine snacks, and the tragedy of living in a town where the gay dating pool could fit in a hot tub.

Later, we migrate to the couch, blankets, legs tangled, Lila tucked between us like she belongs there. Okay. Now.

“Start,” Evan says, clapping once. “From the top.”

Lila exhales. “Okay. So. Jackson.”

I wince. “Deacon.”

She shoots me a look, then Evan. “You see the problem.”

We talk it through slowly, how the gurney came in, how our brains both short-circuited at the same time, how seeing him like that felt like being nineteen again and thirty-six all at once.

“I’m not sure I even recognized him at first,” Lila admits quietly. “Just… the shape of him. And then his face.”

I nod. “Same.”

Evan listens, unusually still, eyes soft in a way that tells me the jokes have been set aside for now. “Okay,” he says gently. “That’s a lot.”

“It gets worse,” I add, and they both look at me. “Priest was there, insisting I talk with him.”

Evan groans. “Of course he was.”

I tell them about the hallway. All of it. The grip. The question. The kiss. The lie. Lila’s hand tightens on mine before I even finish.

“Jesus, Blue.”

Evan leans back dramatically, one hand going to his chest like the memory personally touched him. “Okay, but that hand necklace, ahh!”

I groan. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m absolutely helping,” he insists. “I’m reframing trauma.”

Then comes the parking lot, and Evan nearly falls off the couch laughing when we get to the part where I tried to sell him as the baby’s father.

“I committed,” he says defensively. “I lowered my voice.”

“You went porn parody,” I wheeze, tears streaming down my face.

“I went method!”

We’re all laughing now, real, body-aching laughter that shakes loose the tight places and makes my ribs hurt. For a few seconds, the day releases its grip on us, fear shoved aside by the sheer relief of being alive and upright.