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I get it more than I want to.

So I set my coffee down beside his, the ceramic clink barely loud enough to matter, and turn to face him fully.

“I know what that feels like.”

His head lifts slightly, not all the way—just enough for his eyes to find mine.

“When Mya went into that coma… when the twins came early, and I was standing in that hospital with blood on my shoes and two babies fighting for every breath?” I pause, swallowing the knot clawing its way up my throat. “I thought that was the worst day of my life.”

Thorin doesn’t move. But I see it—the flicker in his eyes, the slight tilt of his shoulders. He’s listening now. Really listening.

“I remember sitting beside Mya’s hospital bed,” I say, voice low and steady like if I speak too loud, the memory might crack open again. “And thinking, this is it. This is the moment everything unravels. I’m gonna have to live in a world without her. Without them. And I swear to God, T, I couldn’t imagine how.”

A sharp breath escapes me, laced with the kind of truth you don’t say out loud unless it’s too heavy to carry alone.

“I couldn’t imagine going on without them. Still can’t. I know I would have. I would’ve survived. But I wouldn’t have lived. Not really.”

Thorin’s eyes are glassy now. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Just stands there like he’s caught between past and present, like if he moves, the whole thing might shatter.

“I get it,” I whisper. “Thinking you knew pain. Thinking you knew love. Then life throws you off a cliff and dares you to crawl back up.”

He swipes at his face with the heel of his palm, hard and fast, like he’s mad at himself for cracking open in front of me.

“I don’t want to do this without her,” he mutters. “I don’t want to write songs about her like she’s some ghost in the melody.”

“You don’t have to,” I tell him. “You don’t have to make sense of it yet. Just breathe. Just keep going. And when you can’t? We will. We’ll keep going for you.”

His throat works around a silent thank you. And for once, he doesn’t try to be strong. Doesn’t joke. Doesn’t deflect. He just stands there in the truth of it.

But he finally looks at me, and that’s when I see it—the break. The raw undercurrent behind the soldier mask. His eyes are red. Not from sleep. Not from weed. Just worn out from carrying too much.

“The crowd…” he says, voice cracking again. “They didn’t know the whole story. They just knew something was breaking. And they tried to hold it.”

I swallow hard. “They did.”

“They fucking held me, man. Like thousands of strangers saying, ‘You’re not alone.’ I didn’t know that could happen.”

I set my mug down and rub a hand over my face, throat burning. “You weren’t alone, T. You never are. We were right there with you. Every note.”

He nods once, jaw tight. “I know.”

Then he surprises me—sets down his coffee and steps forward, pulling me into a hug. No warning. No bravado. Just arms around me like he finally stopped trying to outrun it.

“I miss her,” he says into my shoulder. “So much I think it might kill me.”

“I know, brother.”

And I do. In every single beat.

We stand there, two grown men in a quiet suite in the city that never sleeps, holding the pieces that music couldn’t quite fix last night.

But maybe, just maybe, it was enough to carry us through this morning.

Chapter Thirty-Five

MYA

The sky is just starting to stretch when I step out onto the porch, the baby monitor warm in one hand, a blanket wrapped tight around my shoulders.