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I probably shouldn’t have come. I should go now that he’s okay. I should, I should, but everything inside of me feels like an open wound looking at him in pain, and being in the same room as him makes my lungs feel like they canbreatheagain.
I take his face with both hands and inch closer. “It was just a dream. I’m okay.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and he gives no resistance, immediately collapsing against me. His arms tighten around my waist, holding me to him like he’s afraid I’ll slip through his fingers.
“You saw that?” he murmurs.
I nod.
“I’m sorry if I woke you—”
“Shh.” I run my fingers through his hair as he presses his forehead to my shoulder.
My heart feels like it’s splitting clean in two. Because no matter what’s happened, how much pain we’ve endured, I’ve never seen him like this. Not even close. The toll on both of us has been undeniable, but he’s always seemed to bear it so much better than I can. But maybe that’s just what he let me see.
“Reid,” I whisper, tightening my arms around him while avoiding the bandages and bruises like I can physically put his broken pieces back together.
“I’m fine.” He pulls back with a forced smile, blinking away the moisture in his eyes, that carefully kept wall closing between us again. And maybe it’s not just me. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to see him need them. “Just a dream. You can…”
You can gois what he’d been about to say, though the death grip he has on my waist says otherwise. Even when it’s so clear that he needs someone here for him, he won’t ask.
“Would it be okay if I stay?”
His eyes snap to mine, the spark of light unmistakable. An eternity passes, or maybe only a few moments, but a million unsaid words pass between us.
I want him to say yes. I need him to say no.
Every time I look into his eyes, it feels like the first time. The endless blue is just as mesmerizing, the depth behind them boring deep into my mind, my heart, my soul. With one look, I know he’s seeing more of me than anyone else ever has.
We haven’t even spent that much time apart, not really. But maybe that’s what makes this worse, why my chest is aching with an unquenchable thirst—to see him most days, but to not have him the way I want, the way I need.
He does a double take when he notices the cake sitting a few feet away.
“Is that a…?”
I snort at the sudden ridiculousness of it all, and he turns to me with an uncertain smile.
“Happy birthday? I know it’s ugly, and it’s lame, especially compared to what you did for mine. And I know things are weird between us, and the entire world is on fire, but I just—I just wanted to do something. And I have absolutely no practice with this kind of thing, which is why it looks, well, you know. It’s supposed to look like the sky during the day. Those weird white things are supposed to be clouds, and yeah.”
I snap my mouth shut and fold my knees into my body.
Slowly, Reid looks from me to the cake, and God I wish he wasn’t so damn good at masking his emotions because I have no idea what that look on his face means. He looks…stunned.
“You made this?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I scratch at the back of my neck.
“Just now? In the middle of the day?”
“Yeah.”
He inspects the rest of the cake’s details. Quietly, he says, “Thank you.”
I nod, my throat too thick to respond.
Finally, he cracks a small smile, and I would give anything to keep seeing this look on his face instead of the broken emptiness that had been in his eyes a few moments ago. “You’re not going to make me eat this alone, are you?”
“First you have to make a wish.” I slide the cake off the nightstand to hold it between us, then prick my finger to light the two candles. His eyes soften as we look at each other over the cake, and he holds my gaze as he leans forward and blows the candles out.
“Happy birthday.”
