Chapter 10
Levi
“You need to go after him,” Elijah says, voice professor serious as he swirls the last sip of his cocktail. His glasses slide down his nose, the universal sign he’s about to be…correct.
Dominic nods vigorously, stabbing a piece of prosciutto with the passion of a man who has been waiting all night for a plot twist. “Seconded. And not just because I want the tea. Though I do. Whatever just happened”—he gestures toward the front door where Hayden vanished earlier—“was the kind of peak old-money-with-a-dark-secret drama I live for.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, glancing at the window. It’s still freezing out, the snow blowing sideways. The kind of cold that settles under your skin. And suddenly, all I can think about is Hayden walking home alone, coat pulled tight, shoulders carrying something too heavy, it would appear.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I lie, while every nerve pings in alarm.
Elijah softens, which is somehow worse than when he’s stern. “Maybe he is. But are you?”
I inhale sharply and look between them, my best friends and constants, the people who know when I’m about to spiral before I do. “I need to know that he got home in one piece,” I finally say, heart hammering.
Dominic’s face lights up like a Christmas tree plugged into a power plant. “There he is.” He stands abruptly, pointing at me like an overenthusiastic casting director. “Go get your brooding funeral director, Levi.”
Elijah nods, pushing my coat toward me. “If you don’t, you’re going to sit here all night torturing yourself with hypotheticals.”
“But,” Dominic adds, “I refuse to watch that. It gives me wrinkles.”
And just like that, I’m moving.
· · ·
Hayden doesn’t slam the door in my face, which I count as a minor victory. But he does hesitate, gaze guarded, flickering uncertainly over my expression like he expects me to bolt or perhaps challenge him outright.
The moment I step inside his apartment, two things register simultaneously.
One, the space is unexpectedly inviting.
Not physically warm. Hayden keeps the temperature somewhere between crisp autumn evening and morgue.
But it feels genuinely lived-in. Dark wooden shelves hold books, vinyl records, and artifacts that could comfortably reside in a museum.
An antique globe waits patiently in a corner, the kind you’d spin absentmindedly while contemplating the fate of the world.
Two, Hayden Harlow in sweatpants should require a permit. And a warning sign. And maybe a cold shower on standby.
Black T-shirt clinging indecently to the lean muscles of his shoulders, gray sweatpants slung low across his hips. Barefoot, with his dark hair tousled like he’s run a restless hand through it one too many times.
I stare too long. Long enough that my brain briefly stops functioning and has to reboot like an overheating laptop. My mouth goes dry. My pulse? Thrumming like it’s auditioning for drumline. No suit, no polish. Just Hayden, devastatingly real in one hundred percent cotton.
“Have I grown a second head?” Hayden asks softly, his arms crossing self-consciously over his chest.
Hell, no. But the one you already have is doing things to me, sir.
I snap out of it and thrust the wine I swiped from Elijah’s stash. “Here.”
He eyes the bottle, lips twitching. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” I say, heart fluttering. “But it seemed…appropriate.”
He retreats to the kitchen, and I attempt to keep my eyes above the waist.
I do not succeed. His sweatpants cling in all the right, sinful places, and his ass is…well. I think I’m drooling.
There’s something beneath his cool exterior. Tension and uncertainty and something else I don’t know if I’ve ever learned the name of.
He pours us both a glass, his back still turned. “You didn’t have to come here, either.”
“Ah,” I say softly, slipping onto a stool at the counter. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Something moves in the corner of my eye. A sleek gray cat hops onto the ottoman, tail curling regally around his paws. Amber eyes watch me with the kind of passive judgment only a cat is capable of.
“You have a roommate…” I say as his furry companion clocks me.
Hayden glances over his shoulder. “Seby,” he says simply.
I reach out, scratching lightly behind the cat’s ear. He leans into it immediately, purring loud enough to fill the quiet. “ ‘Roommate’ doesn’t seem right, though,” I tease. “Feels like he runs the place.”
Hayden’s mouth twitches. “He would agree.”
He turns slowly, wariness sliding back over his features as he hands me my glass of wine. “I suppose you’re here for answers.”
“Ding, ding, ding.” I take a careful sip, then set my glass down gently. “You left like someone yanked up a root you’ve spent years burying.”
His eyes darken, fingers tightening around his glass. “Fitting,” he says, like the word tastes bitter.
I hold his gaze. “Hayden.”
He inhales deeply. “You won’t believe me.”
“You’d be surprised what I’m willing to believe.”
He shakes his head, pacing a slow line beside the counter.
He’s uncomfortable. Avoidant. His not-quite-shadows, because that’s what they are, a darkness that clings to him in ways I can’t explain, seem to flicker in the dim light.
They ripple subtly, like smoke curling from a fire, and for the first time, I realize they’re not just around him.
They’re coming from him.
The air thins, a pressure building before a storm. Seby coils tighter in place, not in the slightest bit disturbed. And then the impossible happens: One slender strand lifts, bending toward me like it has intention. Like it knows I’m watching, it sends a whisper of cold against my skin.
All breath leaves my chest. There’s no denying it anymore. Whatever he’s hiding isn’t just unusual. It’s unnatural.
I stand abruptly, stepping toward him, heart suddenly pounding too loud.
He halts mid-step, eyes widening, pulse visibly fluttering at his throat.
Every logical part of me screams to run.
But the rest of me, the louder part, just wants to know.
Without thinking, my hand finds his forearm… soft, cautious, electric.
He freezes, and his shadows still around us.
“You’re trembling,” I whisper, surprised by the rasp in my voice.
“No,” he denies, voice low and strained. “That’s you.”
I notice he’s right. I am shaking, nerves stretched thin, overwhelmed by the possibility of something larger than my understanding.
He watches me carefully, and I see the exact moment he makes his decision. His defenses drop, eyes raw and open.
“I’m someone people used to leave coins for.” His voice is low, measured, but there’s something sharper there. Like he’s setting down a truth and waiting to see if I’ll pick it up.
“You see them, don’t you?” he asks quietly. “My shadows.”
The question lands like a strike. He knows I noticed. And he knows I can’t explain it away.
I nod.
His jaw clenches and I feel the thrum of his pulse beneath my fingertips.
And then, almost like he’s surrendering a fight he’s been waging alone for far too long, he lifts his gaze to mine. “I’m Hades,” he says, and then softer, “or…I was.”
The name lands between us like it’s been there all along, hiding in plain sight. His voice is quiet, broken, and heavy with something ancient. Something far beyond my grasp.
His shadows answer before I can. They surge at his feet, stretching higher, darker, like the whole room is holding its breath around us. A tendril scrapes across the wall, another curls toward me, and the air grows colder, like it’s being swallowed whole.
I suck in a breath, praying it reaches my lungs, but the world tilts anyway. My knees give, sending me sliding down the wall until I’m braced on the floor.
“Oh.” My body believes his admission first; my brain jogs through the impossible after it. “You’re…serious.”
Hayden moves toward me instantly, panic cracking through his mask. “Levi,” he breathes, crouching in front of me, shadows restless at his back. “I’m sorry. I’ve never told anyone before. I didn’t know…they would react like this.”
He reaches out instinctively but stops himself, hands still trembling, unsure if he’s allowed to touch me now. His eyes search mine.
“I don’t…” My voice shakes, words stumbling out clumsy and thick. “I don’t understand. You’re…Hades? Like, the actual god Hades?” My chest heaves, trying to make sense of the impossible. “That shouldn’t be real. It can’t be…”
Hayden swallows hard, his face filled with uncertainty and anguish. “I was. A very long time ago.”
A shadow coils tentatively near my shoulder like it has intention, and my skin prickles with every breath.
“I can feel it,” I rasp, the truth dragging itself out of me.
I hear my pulse loudly in my ears. Hades. The god of the underworld. It should be absurd. Laughable. But when I look at him…at Hayden…it isn’t.
Because I’ve seen too much not to believe it.
It’s the funeral home he runs, steeped in ritual.
The way he moves through town like he’s slightly apart from it, always one step removed.
The trivia at Franny’s…Greek volcanoes and molasses floods, things most people don’t have loaded in their heads on a Friday night unless they lived it.
The shadows that don’t just follow him, they belong to him.
Even his name, Hayden Harlow, a neat suit jacket thrown over a myth.
And then the tarot reader’s voice echoes in my head, sly as she laid down card after card. You still cast quite the shadow. Maybe that’s why he knew about Emily’s bouquet. Why he suggested daisies. At the time, I thought it was intuition, a lucky guess like he’d said.
Suddenly, it all feels achingly clear. Too many pieces aligning, too many impossible things adding up. Not just Hayden. Not just a man. But exactly who he says he is.
And whoever he is…Hayden, Hades, both…I keep landing in the same place.
I’m inclined to trust him. And somehow, I already do.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, desperation tightening his features.
“Wait,” I say suddenly, breathlessly, panic shifting swiftly into something softer. “Just…please don’t disappear.”
He stills at my plea. I lift a trembling hand, fingertips brushing his cheek. He flinches, but his shoulders relax incrementally beneath my touch, and the warmth of him grounds me.
“Levi…” Hayden’s voice cracks.
“Just don’t go,” I whisper again, quieter now, more certain. “Stay. With me.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” he finishes, almost breaking. His hands flex uselessly, as if he’s deciding between reaching for me or retreating.
“Me neither,” I whisper back. “But I’m very good at learning things I care about.”
His eyes finally lift to mine and he’s undone.
He folds me in like he’s bracing a fracture and I’m the splint.
His breath on my neck is the warmest thing in the room.
His shadows still, as if they too know this moment matters.
They move like they adore him. Protective and patient as they’ve been keeping watch all along.
Figures. Even they can’t stand to be away from him.
His throat works as he swallows. “I’ve always had…
rules. Distance was safer. Necessary. Don’t get too close.
Don’t let mortals see too much.” Hayden’s tension bleeds out.
I feel his chest expand, then collapse in relief, in surrender, as his arms tighten, and all I can do is hold him.
His face buries into the crook of my neck, breath warm and ragged against my skin.
It’s the most human, the most achingly vulnerable I’ve ever known him to be.
I brush a hand through his soft hair, whispering, “You don’t have to hide with me.”
He stills at that, just for a second, like the words land somewhere deep.
When he finally draws back, his eyes are glassy. Storm clouds after rain, fragile and hopeful.
“I didn’t want you to see me this way,” he admits.
His gaze drops, shoulders going rigid, like holding himself together is the only thing he knows how to do.
The shadows coil tighter, then falter at his feet, restless.
“I kept things shallow. Polite.” His mouth twists, almost bitter.
“It was easier. If no one looked too closely, they wouldn’t notice what I was… or what I wasn’t.”
He exhales, a sound closer to defeat than relief. “But the distance…it hollows you out.”
I touch his jaw gently, thumb brushing the rough edge of stubble. His shadows flicker at the touch, uncertain, but I don’t flinch. “You talk about yourself like you’re missing pieces,” I murmur. “But all I see is someone who’s been carrying too much for too long.”
His breath hitches, eyes closing for a heartbeat, like he’s trying to memorize the words. When they open again, hope flickers there. Fragile, but real.
“Stay,” he says, like he’s never said it first.
“I’m here,” I answer, steady and certain. “Ask around. Half the town can confirm how stubborn I am.”
His jaw tenses like he’s fighting the urge to believe me, like hope is something he’s not accustomed to entertaining. It isn’t just doubt, I think, but fear. Fear of what being seen might cost him. I can’t change the past, or whatever made him this way. But I can stay.
Because if loneliness made him this careful, maybe company can make him brave.
His eyes drop. First to my mouth, then to the space between us, where our hands still brush. Something heavy coils low in my stomach, and for a second, I think he might kiss me.
But he doesn’t.
The restraint shouldn’t wreck me, but it does.
Want is loud, but respect is louder…which only makes it worse as his eyes search mine, lips parted, shadows finally quiet around us.
Could he hurt me? I have no idea. But Hayden is asking to be known, and I, the fool that I am, want to know him completely.
He leans ever so slightly into my touch, his head bowing forward like the weight of this truth has finally defeated him.
His shadows ease, curling at our feet like spent smoke as the room exhales with us.
And in that heartbeat, kneeling together in the entryway, I realize something with startling clarity.
This man, this god, let himself soften with me. And despite every impossible detail, every overwhelming secret, I want nothing more than to protect that softness.