Chapter 30 Loving Me #4
Then he gave me a quick nod and left in a sweep of keys. I stood alone for one suspended second before walking farther inside.
Bramwell was on the couch with one arm in a sling. Bandages disappeared beneath the collar of a grey shirt. Bruising darkened one side of his jaw, yellowing at the edges. He looked tired.
He still smiled when he saw me.
"Well," he said. "Either I'm hallucinating beautifully or you've come to admire my suffering in person."
I stayed near the doorway. His eyes moved over me carefully, then sharpened.
"You're limping."
I ignored that and uttered only one word, "Why?"
He blinked once, then laughed softly.
"Why are you here is admittedly what I hoped you meant."
I didn't move. The laughter faded when he realized I was serious. He adjusted himself on the couch, then regretted it immediately if the tightening around his mouth meant anything.
"I was there because it is, annoyingly, part of my job," he said.
I waited.
"The ridge access road sits on weathered shale and loose fill," he continued. "So I went up there to recheck movement markers and close the route before larger equipment came through. Then I heard your team had already been deployed."
His voice softened.
"I knew where you'd be."
Something in my chest tightened.
"The second collapse started sooner than predicted. I stayed long enough to move barriers and redirect the trucks."
My throat opened and closed around the next words.
"You...could have died."
He went still. Then, very gently, he said, "Yes." Pain crossed his face then, quiet and real. "I was not eager for it," he added. "But if those vehicles had taken that road, we would be speaking about funerals and headlines."
The room held that sentence between us. When I looked back, he was watching me with an expression stripped of performance.
"April," he said softly, "I am bruised, stitched, somewhat decorative with bandages, and currently unable to open jars."
His smile returned, gentler now.
"But I am alive."
I exhaled shakily. Then I set down my bag and looked toward the kitchen. His brows lifted.
"Are you robbing me alphabetically?"
I rolled my eyes and pointed toward the kitchen, then at him. Understanding warmed his face.
"You want to help."
I nodded.
"That is dangerous information," he said. "I could become spoiled in under an hour."
I waited.
He studied me for a moment, humor slipping into something quieter.
"All right," he said. "Green light."
The kitchen was modest and chaotic, arranged by a man who believed storage systems should make sense only to him. I found bread in a drawer, mugs beside the stove, medicine next to oranges, and three types of tea arranged like hidden clues.
From the other room he called, "I can hear you judging my systems."
I had made no sound.
"It has volume." I smiled.
I made soup because it required the least trust in his pantry. My ribs protested every reach and turn, but the work steadied me. Behind me I could hear him shifting occasionally, trying to disguise pain with unnecessary throat-clearing.
When I carried him a bowl, he looked up as though I had handed him something rare.
"You came here injured," he said, "and cooked for me in a kitchen you clearly consider criminal."
I set the bowl down. He took a careful spoonful and closed his eyes.
"This is excellent," he said. "I resent needing you so quickly."
I sat in the chair opposite him. For a while we said nothing. The apartment settled around us with evening sounds: pipes in the walls, distant traffic, the soft clink of spoon against ceramic.
Then Bramwell looked at me for a long moment, something gentler than teasing in his face.
"You know," he said, "I cannot recommend being crushed by unstable terrain."
He took another spoonful.
"But if it ends with you in my kitchen, I'm forced to admit there were highlights."
Chapter 21: Love Out Loud
Two days later, I came home and found Ellis waiting on the front steps with a bouquet of flowers balanced carefully in one arm and two overfilled grocery bags hanging from the other hand.
He stood the moment he saw me. Relief moved across his face so quickly it looked almost like pain before he mastered it into something calmer.
"Where were you yesterday?"
I stopped walking. The question had come out sharper than he intended, and he seemed to hear it himself. His expression softened at once.
"I came by twice," he said more quietly. "I knocked for a while. You didn't answer your phone either."
I said nothing. I just looked at what he was holding. The flowers were beautiful and the grocery bags were heavy enough to bow their handles. He used to do things like that all the time when we were together.
If my shifts ran late, he would appear with dinner already warm.
If storms were coming, he stocked my kitchen before I remembered to think of it.
When a trail washed out and I spent three days knee-deep in mud marking hazards, he showed up after his station shift and repaired broken fence lines beside me until dark.
He sharpened my tools without mentioning it, changed the battery in my truck when it died, hauled feed sacks for the rescue center because he knew my shoulder was bad that month, and once spent an entire Sunday clearing storm branches from ranger paths simply because I had looked tired the day before.
He had always tried to lighten whatever life placed on me.
Standing there now, holding flowers and groceries like instinct had carried him back into old habits, he looked painfully familiar.
"You should have told someone where you were," he said.
His voice was gentle, but worry roughened the edges of it. I looked away. He studied my face quietly, taking in the bruising I had failed to hide, the exhaustion, whatever else had settled there in the last two days.
"You look better."
Still I said nothing.
He gave a small nod, "I brought food," he said, lifting the bags slightly. "Enough for a few days, I think. Soup, fruit, bread, eggs, things that require very little effort. I remembered you never eat properly when your mind is somewhere else."
Then he glanced at the bouquet.
"And flowers, because I didn't know what else to bring to someone who nearly disappeared."
I walked past him to the door and unlocked it. I did not step aside. I did not invite him in. He understood immediately. The smallest shadow crossed his face before he hid it.
"Right," he said softly.
He came only as far as the threshold, then bent to place the grocery bags beside the door. He set the flowers on top with unexpected care, adjusting the stems so they would not bruise. When he straightened, he looked at me for a long moment.
My fingers tightened around my keys. He noticed and stepped back at once.
"I only needed to know you were alive and standing," he said.
He gave one last glance at the flowers by the door, as if hoping they might succeed where he could not, then stepped back from the porch.
"I'll go now."
He descended the steps slowly, hands empty at last, and walked away, leaving beauty and provisions on my doorstep the same way he used to do.
*******
I walked to Bramwell's apartment that afternoon carrying fresh bread and the uneasy certainty that I was becoming someone who visited injured men with supplies. I have never done this.
The door opened before I had fully knocked. A woman with bright silver-blonde hair and a soft yellow scarf stood there smiling at me.
"You must be April."
Before I could react, she took both my hands in hers. Her touch was warm and light.
"Oh, thank goodness," she said. "We have wanted to meet the person who has been taking care of our son."
I blinked. Behind her stood an older man with Bramwell's mouth and gentler eyes.
"Yes," he said, stepping forward to relieve me of the bread before I could object. "We owe you gratitude, apologies, and probably reimbursement for emotional labor."
The woman laughed softly.
"I'm Celeste," she said. "This is Martin, who tells strangers he is stern."
"I tell no such thing," Martin replied. "People assume it because I'm handsome and reserved."
"Come in," Celeste said, drawing me gently inside before hesitation could become refusal. "You must be tired."
I entered the apartment in a daze of warmth and movement.
Bramwell was on the couch with one arm in a sling, looking deeply unimpressed by existence. When he saw me, his whole face changed. Then he noticed his parents standing around me and closed his eyes briefly.
"they found you."
Celeste touched his cheek at once.
"Don't be rude to your guest."
"She was my guest first."
Martin set the bread in the kitchen and walked over to inspect Bramwell with the solemnity of a physician who had no training.
"You look terrible," Martin said, studying him with open satisfaction.
"I was injured," Bramwell replied.
"Yes, but even allowing for that."
Bramwell let out a low groan and dropped his head back against the couch.
"You are embarrassing me."
"Good," Martin said pleasantly. "It's fair repayment for the many years you embarrassed us."
Celeste turned to me with a warm smile.
"When he was eight, he kissed a pebble goodbye before we moved house because he didn't want it to feel abandoned."
Bramwell lifted a finger weakly, "I believed it was quartz."
"It was gravel," Martin said at once.
Celeste continued as though encouraged, "And at nine he asked for a birthday cake shaped like sedimentary layers."
"Stop it," Bramwell said.
Martin nodded, "Yeah he blew out the candles, then gave a speech on erosion while the other children waited for icing."
Bramwell then looked at me, "I am sorry, I didn't know they were coming. They've just come back from travelling. I suspect they landed, heard I was damaged, and came directly here to supervise my suffering."
"We came because we love you," Celeste said.
"And because your mother would not stop calling airport taxis from the arrivals gate," Martin added.