Chapter Thirty Evan
The ribs are worse today than they were two days ago at the fire.
This is the thing about bruised ribs that nobody tells you, or rather everyone tells you, and you don’t believe them until you’re lying on your own couch at eleven in the morning trying to find a position that doesn’t make breathing feel like a personal insult.
Yesterday, the adrenaline was helpful. Today, it has entirely clocked out and left me with nothing but the full, honest accounting of what twenty floors and a malfunctioning harness do to a human body.
I shift position.
The ribs register their objection immediately.
“Stop moving,” Brielle says, from the armchair across from me, without looking up from her laptop.
“I’m comfortable,” I say.
“You winced,” she says.
“I didn’t wince.”
“Evan.”
“It was a thinking face,” I say. “I think with my face sometimes. It’s a process.”
She looks up from the laptop and gives me the look.
“The ribs hurt,” I say.
“I know the ribs hurt,” she says. “That’s why I told you to stop moving.”
She sets the laptop aside and gets up, and I track her across the room.
She goes to the kitchen and comes back with two painkillers and a glass of water. She holds them out to me. “Here you go.”
I take them.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don’t thank me,” she says. “Just stop moving.”
She sits back down in the armchair, pulls the laptop back onto her knees, while I remain lying on the couch, looking at the ceiling, and think about the fact that nobody fusses over me.
That’s not a complaint. It’s a fact that I have never particularly examined until right now, lying here with bruised ribs while Brielle Hayes works at her laptop and hands me painkillers and tells me to stop moving.
My brothers love me. My mother calls every week. My dad would drive through the night if I asked him to. But fussing, that act of someone paying close attention to whether I am okay and adjusting their behavior accordingly, is not something I have extensive experience receiving.
I find I don’t know what to do with it except lie still and let it happen.
***
The morning passes quietly.
Jase left for a supply run an hour ago. Max is at the station, where he has been every day since the fire, arriving before anyone else and leaving after. He’s building distance out of busyness.
I have known Max for six years, and I recognize the pattern even if I don’t always know what to do about it.
Brielle notices it too. I can tell from the way she doesn’t mention him at all.
At noon, she makes soup, which she announces she is doing from a can and not from scratch, and that I should lower my expectations accordingly.
I eat it sitting up on the couch with a pillow behind my back, and it is good soup.
After lunch, she comes and sits on the other end of the couch, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her without us touching, and she pulls her knees up and looks at me with the expression she gets when she’s about to say something real.
“You scared me the other day,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” she says. “Just.” She pauses. “You were so brave. Going up there. Twenty floors in a harness to get a woman and three children out.” She shakes her head slightly. “I don’t know how you do it. Any of you. I don’t know how you go toward those things instead of away from them.”
I look at her.
Something about the way she says it—with genuine quiet wonder, like she’s actually trying to understand it, makes the deflection I would normally reach for feel wrong in my hands.
I put it down.
“It’s not bravery,” I say. “Not the way people mean it.”
She waits.
“It’s just.” I look at the ceiling for a second, finding the words.
“When you go up the side of a building in a harness, there’s nothing else.
No noise, no history, no version of yourself you’re trying to live up to.
Just the job and what the job needs.” I pause.
“It’s the only time I’m not trying to be anything. ”
She’s quiet.
“The rest of the time,” I say, “I’m always trying to be something.
Useful. Entertaining. Worth having around.
” I look at my hands. “I’m the youngest of four.
My family loves me the way families love the youngest—completely and slightly like a child who hasn’t yet been fully trusted with the good China.
And I spent a long time trying to be impressive enough that someone would hand me the good China.”
“Evan,” she says softly.
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me,” I say.
“I don’t feel sorry for me. I just.” I look at her.
“You called me brave, and I wanted you to know what you were actually looking at. Because it’s not bravado.
It’s the one place where I get to stop performing and be the person doing the job. ”
She’s looking at me with those brown eyes and her knees pulled to her chest. She’s not filling the silence with reassurance or redirection, just holding it, and I think about how much of my life I have spent with people who get uncomfortable with silence and rush to fill.
“You are brave,” she says. “What you told me doesn’t change that. It makes it more true, actually. Not less.”
I look at her.
“Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared,” she says. “It means you go anyway. You went anyway.” She holds my gaze. “That’s you, Evan. That’s not a performance. That’s who you are.”
I have received compliments my whole life. I am good at receiving them, good at the gracious deflection, the modest shrug, the charming self-deprecation that keeps everyone comfortable.
I have never once received one and felt it land like this.
“Brielle,” I say.
“Mm,” she says.
“I’m falling for you,” I say. “I want you to know that. Not as a thing that requires anything from you right now, just as a true thing.”
She doesn’t look away.
“I know what’s happening,” I say. “Between you and Jase. Between you and Max, or whatever version of between that is right now. I’m not asking you to choose, and I’m not asking you to explain anything.
I’m telling you that what I feel is real and that I’m happy to be part of this in whatever way you’ll have me.
” I pause. “However, this looks. Whatever it becomes. I’m in it… If you’d like that.”
She doesn’t answer right away.
Then she uncurls herself from her end of the couch and closes the distance between us, mindful of the ribs, and when she reaches me, she cups my face in both hands and looks at me for a long moment.
“You have always been worth the good China,” she says.
I close my eyes briefly.
When I open them, she’s still looking at me, and her thumbs are moving against my jaw, and I turn my head slightly and press my mouth to her palm and feel her breath catch.
“Can I kiss you?” I say.
She gives a small smile. “Yes,” she says.
I lean back on the couch and let her take control.
Brielle kisses me softly. Her lips are warm, and she sighs quietly against my mouth.
She is careful not to put any weight on my chest as she shifts closer. Her hands cup my face gently while we kiss, slow and unhurried, like we have all the time in the world.
After a moment, she pulls back and looks at me. “Tell me if anything hurts,” she whispers.
I nod, my eyes soft. “I will.”
She swings one leg over and straddles my lap, keeping most of her weight on her knees.
I feel the warmth of her body between my thighs.
We kiss again, deeper this time, and her hands slide under my shirt, running over my stomach and chest, avoiding the bruised area on my ribs. Her touch is warm and light.
“Can I take this off?” she asks.
“Please,” I say.
She helps me out of my shirt, then pulls her own sweater over her head. I rest my hands lightly on her waist as I look at her. She unhooks her bra and lets it fall away. My gaze moves over her bare skin, and I feel that familiar pull low in my stomach. I stay still, letting her lead.
She leans down and kisses my neck, then my collarbone, taking her time. Every time my breath hitches, she pauses and checks my face. I keep one hand on her hip, thumb stroking back and forth.
The apartment is completely quiet except for our breathing and the soft sounds of our mouths.
She slides lower, kissing down my chest and stomach. When she reaches the waistband of my pants, she looks up at me.
“Okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “More than okay.”
She eases my pants and boxers down. I lift my hips carefully to help her. Once I am naked, she wraps her hand around me and strokes.
I groan softly, my head falling back against the couch. She watches my face the whole time, learning what I like.
“Brielle,” I murmur, voice strained. “That feels so good.”
She lowers her head and takes me into her mouth, slow and gentle.
The wet heat of her tongue and the steady rhythm of her hand make my thighs tense. My fingers thread lightly into her hair, not pushing, just holding on. After a few minutes, my breathing grows heavier.
“Come here,” I say softly. “I want to feel you.”
She moves back up and kisses me again. Then she stands, takes off the rest of her clothes, and helps me to my feet. We walk to my bedroom, her arm around my waist for support.
Once inside, she guides me to lie on my back on the bed. The afternoon light coming through the window is soft and grey.
She climbs over me and straddles my hips again. She braces her hands on the mattress beside my shoulders, keeping her weight off my ribs. I look up at her, my hands resting on her thighs.
“You’re sure this is okay for your ribs?” she asks.
“I’m sure,” I say. “I want this. I want you.”
She reaches between us, lines me up, and sinks down onto me very slowly. We both moan quietly as I fill her.
When I am all the way inside, she stays still for a long moment, feeling me, letting us both adjust. My hands slide up to her waist and hold her gently.
“God, Brielle,” I whisper, eyes locked on hers. “You feel perfect.”
She starts to move, slow and careful rolls of her hips. There is no rush. Every movement is deliberate and deep. She keeps watching my face, making sure I am comfortable. I keep my eyes on her the whole time. My thumbs stroke her skin in gentle circles.
At one point, she leans down and kisses me softly. “Are you okay?” she murmurs against my lips.
“Yes,” I say, and I mean it completely. “I’m perfect right now.”
The pleasure builds between us, and she moves a little faster when she is ready, but she never loses control. My hands stay on her hips, gently guiding her. Our breathing fills the quiet room, mixing with soft moans and whispered names.
When she gets close, she reaches down and touches herself while still moving on me. I watch her with dark, focused eyes.
“Come for me,” I say quietly.
The orgasm washes over her, as she moans my name as her body tightens around me.
I follow right after, groaning low as I pulse inside her, my hands gripping her hips a little tighter for a minute before relaxing again.
She stays on top of me for a while, breathing together. Then she lifts off and lies beside me, resting her head on the part of my chest that is safe. I wrap one arm around her and let out a long, contented breath.
The light through the window has gone the grey of late afternoon, and neither of us has moved.
“How are the ribs?” she asks.
“What ribs,” I say.
She laughs. It’s soft, and her breath is warm against my skin.
“Evan,” she says.
“They’re fine,” I say. “They’re genuinely fine. I barely feel them.”
“Liar,” she says.
“Mostly fine,” I say. “Contextually fine. Fine given the circumstances.”
She laughs again, and I feel it move through her and through me.
I think about Erick’s voice on the phone, saying, you know how it is, being the youngest, and I think that I am going to have to call my brother at some point and tell him some things.
Not today.
Today I am lying in my own room in my own apartment with a woman who called me brave and meant it. My ribs ache steadily, the afternoon is grey and quiet, and I am not performing anything at all because turns out this is what the good China feels like.