Chapter Fourteen
Nail woke to sunlight through unfamiliar curtains and Sadie's hand pressed flat against his chest.
The apartment above Flynn's was small—one room, one bathroom, a kitchenette that barely qualified as such. He'd crashed here a thousand times after late nights behind the bar, but he'd never woken up with someone beside him. Never felt the weight of another person's warmth against his skin.
Her hand was oil-stained. Still. Always. Like the grease had become part of her, permanent as tattoos or scars. Her fingers curled slightly against his chest, rising and falling with his breath, and something in him cracked open at the sight of it.
She's still here.
Part of him had expected her to bolt. After the battle, after the bar, after everything she'd seen and done—some piece of him had braced for the moment she'd realize what this life really meant and decide it wasn't worth the price.
But she was still here. Her hand on his chest. Her body curved into his.
Her eyes snapped open.
No transition. No slow wake. One moment she was asleep, the next she was fully present, gaze sharp and aware, taking in her surroundings like someone who'd learned young not to let her guard down.
"Morning," he said.
"What time is it?"
"Early." He didn't move. Didn't want to break whatever fragile peace they'd found. "Sun's barely up."
She processed that, her eyes scanning the small room—the water-stained ceiling, the narrow bed, the window that looked out over Thames Street. Then her gaze came back to his face, and something softened.
"You're staring."
"Can't help it." His hand found hers on his chest, fingers interlacing. "Not used to waking up like this."
"With someone?"
"With you."
The words hung between them, honest and heavy. She didn't look away.
"Your bar's destroyed," she said.
"I know."
"We had sex on broken glass."
"I know that too." He couldn't help the smile. "I've got the cuts to prove it."
She pushed herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. In the morning light, her face was soft—no makeup, no defenses, just Sadie with her sleep-tangled hair and her grease-stained hands and her eyes that saw too much.
"Tell me about him," she said. "Your father. Not the drowning. The before."
Nail's chest tightened. He'd talked about his father before—the bones of the story, the basic facts—but this was different. This was the morning after, with her warmth still pressed against him and her eyes asking for something real.
"He was good," Nail said finally. "At the beginning. When I was young." He stared at the ceiling, finding it easier than her face. "He built that bar from nothing. Worked eighteen-hour days, learned everyone's names, made Flynn's the kind of place where people felt at home."
"What happened?"
"Life. Stress. The slow accumulation of disappointments that nobody talks about.
" His thumb traced patterns on her palm.
"I don't know when the drinking started.
It felt like one day he was fine and the next he wasn't. But that's not how it works.
It's gradual. The after-shift beer becomes two.
The two becomes four. The four becomes a bottle in the office that nobody's supposed to know about. "
Sadie was quiet, listening.
"The smile stayed though. That's the thing people don't understand. Drunks can still perform. Addicts can still charm a room. The mask doesn't crack until the very end—and by then, everyone's so used to it they don't see what's underneath."
"You saw."
"I lived with him." Nail's jaw tightened. "I watched him practice happiness in the bathroom mirror every morning. I heard him crying in the office after closing when he thought I'd gone home. I knew every lie he told and every truth he was hiding, and I couldn't do anything about any of it."
"You were a kid."
"Kids grow up. I didn't stop him. Didn't even try. Just watched the whole thing collapse, one bottle at a time, until there was nothing left to save." His voice hardened. "Then he walked into the harbor and made it someone else's problem."
Sadie's hand tightened on his.
"He made a choice," she said quietly. "A bad one. But that's not your fault."
"I know that. Here." He tapped his temple. "Knowing it here is harder." He tapped his chest.
She was silent for a moment. Then she lay back down, her head on his shoulder, her body pressed along his side.
"My mother left when I was seven," she said.
Nail turned his head slightly, giving her his attention without demanding eye contact.
"Just walked out one morning. No warning, no goodbye, no explanation. I came downstairs for breakfast and she was gone. Everything she owned, packed into the car. The only thing she left behind was me."
"Sadie..."
"Uncle Mickey came the same day. Drove up from Canton in that old truck he had, the one that barely ran.
Didn't ask questions, didn't demand explanations.
Just loaded me into the cab and took me home.
" Her voice was steady, but there was weight underneath it.
"He said mothers who leave aren't worth chasing.
Said the only things worth trusting are the ones that stay. "
"Engines," Nail said.
"Engines." A ghost of a smile. "Tools. Metal. Things you can take apart and understand. Things that don't leave in the middle of the night because they decided they wanted something else."
He pulled her closer, feeling the warmth of her against his side.
"When did you rebuild your first engine?"
"Fourteen." The memory softened her voice. "A '69 Camaro someone had given up on. The owner didn't think it was worth saving—just wanted to haul it away for scrap. Mickey bought it for two hundred dollars and put me in the garage with a manual and a toolbox."
"And you fixed it."
"Took me three months. I didn't know what I was doing half the time, just kept trying things until they worked.
When I finally turned the key and that engine roared to life...
" She trailed off. "Mickey smiled. Really smiled, the kind that reached his eyes.
And I realized that was the first time since my mother left that anything had felt stable. "
Nail understood. More than he wanted to admit.
"Fixing things," he said. "That's how you cope."
"It's how I stay." She propped herself up again, looking down at him. "Everything else leaves. People, places, promises. But when you fix something—when you put the pieces back together and make it work—it stays fixed. At least until it breaks again."
"And then you fix it again."
"And then I fix it again."
He reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Her face was so close, her eyes so open, and in this moment he could see all of her—the scared seven-year-old watching her mother drive away, the fourteen-year-old rebuilding something broken because it was the only way she knew to make peace with a world that kept falling apart.
"The act is off with you," he said. "You know that, right? The smile, the charm, the friendly bartender routine—none of it works on you."
"I know."
"Does that bother you? Knowing what's underneath?"
She studied his face for a long moment. Then she leaned down and kissed him—slow, deliberate, nothing like the desperate fire of last night. This was something quieter. Something that meant I see you and I'm not running.
When she pulled back, her eyes were warm.
"I figured that out the first night you poured me a drink without smiling," she said. "When you dropped the mask because you thought no one was watching. I saw the man underneath, and I decided that was the one I wanted."
Something cracked in his chest. Something that had been locked tight for years, protected behind layers of charm and performance and the certainty that no one would ever want the real him.
"Sadie—"
"You don't have to say anything." She settled back against his shoulder, her hand finding its place on his chest. "I'm not asking for promises or declarations. I just want you to know that I see you. The real you. And I'm still here."
He couldn't speak. Didn't trust his voice.
Instead, he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her like she might disappear if he let go. The morning light crept across the floor, warming the small room, and somewhere below them the ruined bar waited for attention.
But not yet.
For now, there was this. Two people who'd learned to hide, choosing to be seen. Two walls, finally coming down.
Nail pressed a kiss to the top of her head and let himself believe, just for a moment, that this could last.
That she could stay.
That maybe—for the first time since his father walked into the harbor—something good had decided to stick around.
"The first night," he said quietly.
"Hmm?"
"You said you figured it out the first night I poured you a drink without smiling." He stared at the ceiling, but his arms tightened around her. "That was the first time in years I'd dropped the mask for anyone."
"I know."
"How?"
She turned her head, pressing a kiss to his chest.
"Because you looked surprised when you realized you'd done it. Like you'd accidentally shown someone a card you meant to keep hidden." Her voice was soft against his skin. "But you didn't take it back. You just kept pouring drinks, and kept not smiling, and kept being real."
"You noticed all that?"
"James." She used his name deliberately, carefully, the way she only did in moments like this. "I notice everything about you. Always have."
He closed his eyes and let the warmth of her words wash over him.
She noticed. She saw. She stayed.
And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Nail let himself stop performing—not because he had to, but because with her, he didn't want to anymore.