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And maybe that’s the difference between him and them.

He doesn’t need me to be anything but exactly who I am.

And somehow, that makes everything inside me go still. Not fixed. Not forgotten. But… quiet. Like my lungs finally remember how to breathe.

“I’ll make dinner,” Fletch says, pushing off the counter with that easy kind of confidence that makes me want to curl into him and never move again. “Something easy. Pasta?”

I nod, grateful for the distraction and the weight he doesn’t ask me to carry alone.

He moves around the kitchen like he knows what he’s doing—opening cabinets, pulling out a pot, lighting the burner. It smells like garlic and butter within minutes, the kitchen warming with something more than heat.

For a while, there’s only the sound of boiling water and the rhythmic clink of the wooden spoon against the saucepan. But then, quietly, like it’s nothing but everything all at once, he speaks.

“My dad left when I was seven,” he says, eyes fixed on the stove. “Told my mom he was going to the store for bread. Never came back.”

I blink, his words knocking the air out of me. It’s not the kind of thing he’s ever shared before. Not with me. Not when we were tangled up in sheets and silence and all the things we didn’t say.

“My mom was a nurse,” he continues. “Worked double shifts most weeks just to keep us fed. I didn’t see her much, but she tried. She always tried.”

He tosses a handful of pasta into the pot like the memory doesn’t weigh heavy on his chest. Like it doesn’t chip away at the walls I didn’t know I still had up.

“I almost went the wrong way. Some of the guys I hung out with back then—they were into shit I had no business being around. Petty stuff at first. Then not so petty.”

“What changed?” I ask softly, afraid to break whatever fragile thread he’s trusting me with.

He finally glances over, the smallest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Thorin.”

Of course it was.

“And Benji. And Carson. Met them at school. Thorin convinced the JV football coach to give me a shot, even though I had zero experience and a serious chip on my shoulder.” He stirs the pasta. “Coach didn’t want to, but Thorin wouldn’t shut up. Said I was strong, fast, and angry enough to flatten a linebacker.”

A breath of laughter escapes me. “Sounds about right.”

“That team saved me.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Like that chapter of his life didn’t leave bruises that still haven’t faded. “Being part of something… it made me want to be better. Made me feel like maybe I could be.”

The pot hisses as he drains the water, the sound cutting through the thick emotion knotting my throat.

He doesn’t look at me when he says, “I’ve never told anyone that. Not like this.”

I swallow hard. “Why me?”

His answer is simple. Unshakable.

“Because you don’t ask me to be anything else, either.”

I don’t even realize I’m moving until my body does it for me.

One minute I’m standing across the room, arms wrapped around myself like armor, and the next I’m stepping into his space—into that soft, quiet storm of Fletch where everything real lives beneath the surface.

I wrap my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek to the worn cotton of his t-shirt. He goes still for a breath. Two. Then he leans back into me, just a little. Just enough.

We stay like that while the sauce simmers and the kitchen fills with the scent of garlic and something almost like peace.

“Do you ever talk to her?” I ask quietly. “Your mom.”

His hand tightens around the spoon. “Not much,” he says after a beat. “She moved upstate a few years ago. Still works too much. Still acts like I’m one missed call away from disappearing like he did.”

I squeeze him tighter. “You’re not him.”