Chapter 33 Nate
NATE
The wall was white.
Close. Too close. My nose almost touching the paint, the faint chemical smell of it filling my lungs.
My shoulders were shaking and my legs had gone numb and somewhere behind me, his voice.
That low, clipped cadence that never needed to rise above conversational volume, because the threat lived underneath it, coiled and patient, and you learned fast to listen for it before it struck.
A glass on the counter. That’s all it had been.
A glass on the counter instead of in the dishwasher, and I’d been standing here for hours, and my legs wouldn’t stop shaking, and I was eleven, and I was learning the only lesson my father ever really taught me: don’t feel it, and if you do feel it, don’t show it.
The wall flickered. White paint, then blue. Close, then far. My father’s voice and then something softer, a warmth against my side completely foreign to that hallway. Something impossible, because nothing warm ever survived in the same space as him.
I tried to surface. The dream dragged at me, heavy and reluctant, like hands around my ankles pulling me back under. My chest was locked. My lungs wouldn’t expand. I was eleven, and I was thirty-two and the wall was right there and it wasn’t, and his voice was fading but not fast enough.
My eyes opened. My jaw ached from clenching. The sheets were twisted around my legs like I’d been fighting in my sleep, and my pulse was running too fast for a body that was lying still.
I stared at the ceiling and breathed.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The same rhythm I’d used when the mortar fire got close enough to rattle your teeth. The same one I’d used at sixteen, locked in the bathroom with blood on my lip and my hands braced on the sink.
Slowly, the room reassembled itself around me. Blue walls. Morning light. The faint smell of lavender from the sheets and something warmer underneath it.
Maya.
Her breathing was slow and even, her face tucked against my shoulder, one leg hooked over mine. Even in sleep she’d decided I was staying put.
The tension in my muscles slowly eased, a fist unclenching, one finger at a time.
Maya’s room. Maya’s bed. Maya warm and breathing and draped across me as though I was her personal pillow, and last night still humming through.
I turned my head and pressed my lips against her hair. She made a small sound in her sleep, something between a sigh and a hum, and burrowed closer.
My father’s voice faded to static, then to silence.
This. Just this.
A clatter from somewhere down the hall yanked me back to full consciousness. A cupboard closing. The clink of ceramic. Soft humming. Water running, then the low gurgle of a coffee maker coming to life.
Nancy was up.
The realization landed like a bucket of ice water. I was naked, in her daughter’s childhood bed, in her house, and she was twenty feet away making coffee.
Fresh tension oozed into my bloodstream. The same fear wearing different clothes.
My mind ran the logistics with military efficiency and civilian-grade panic.
My clothes were on the floor. The door was closed but not locked.
The hallway between here and the bathroom was short but completely exposed.
Added to that, Nancy had the super powers of a woman who caught whispered swear words through three closed doors.
I needed to get up. Get dressed. Get out of this bed. Get into the kitchen like a normal human being who hadn’t spent last night doing things to Nancy’s daughter that would make a grown woman blush.
Maya stirred against me. A slow stretch, her body arching like a cat, and then those green eyes blinked open, hazy and soft.
“Morning.” Her voice was rough with sleep and so gorgeous it almost derailed me.
“Your mom’s up.”
The haze cleared. She tipped her head, and the corner of her mouth twitched. “Yep. That’s her.”
“So how are we going to handle this?”
“Handle what?”
“Telling your parents. About us.” I gestured between us, as if the situation required visual aids. “About this.”
She studied my face for a moment. The sheer panic she found there made her expression soften. She rose up on one elbow, cupped my jaw, and kissed me. Slow and deliberate, her thumb stroking my cheekbone, grounding me.
“Like this,” she said against my lips.
Then she threw back the duvet, grabbed my shirt from the floor, pulled it over her head, and padded out of the room. Just like that.
I lay there, eyes fixed on the ceiling, wearing nothing but the sheets and an expression of bewilderment.
Maya’s voice drifted down the hall, bright and easy. “Morning, Mom.”
“Oh, hello darling! I didn’t know you were here. Where did you sleep?”
“In my bed.”
A pause that had texture to it.
“And where did Nate sleep?”
“In my bed.”
A longer pause. I could practically hear Nancy recalibrating.
“I see. And was that... nice?”
“Yeah, Mom. It was really nice.”
“Um, great. Wonderful.”
No explosion. No clipped silence. No door slamming, no voice dropping to that low, dangerous register that meant someone was about to pay for something.
I finally pushed myself upright and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, sitting there with my elbows on my knees and my hands hanging between them. I let out a long, shaky breath, the vise around my chest finally loosening.
“Thought I might make waffles,” Maya said, casual as anything. “If you’re down with that?”
“Sure. Your father would like that.”
“Great.”
Pans clattered. The fridge opened and closed. And then Nancy’s voice again, lower this time. “Waffles. Yes. Very good. Oh, isn’t this lovely.”
A helpless smile broke across my face.
I reached for my jeans and pulled them on, then grabbed a fresh shirt from the dresser. My legs were still a bit shaky, like I’d braced for impact and the ground had turned out to be soft. I took one last deep breath to steady my pulse. It was time to go watch my girl eat waffles in my t-shirt.