Chapter 21
Tate
The smell of bacon and Carter humming some indie shit in the kitchen is what wakes me up, followed by Haven’s laugh filtering down the hall. Like clockwork, I’m hungry. Not for breakfast, for her.
The way she’s been walking around all soft in all of our oversized hoodies. And she keeps letting Carter baby her after matches.
She’s asking for trouble, so I’m going to give it to her. I open Twitter and type one line.
nooneghost: throat or thighs first. don’t care. i’m starving.
I hit send. Drop my phone on the couch and wait. The replies come fast, it’s predictable chaos.
[@fragqueen666]: SIR
[@pixelslut]: girl RUN
[@whoisnooneghost]: do it thighs first she deserves the warm up
I scroll for a second and then switch over to DMs.
me: if you wear that hoodie to stream again i’ll bend you over the chair and make sure you couldn’t finish a single round.
I close the app.
I know she’s seen it because thirty seconds after the tweet goes live, I hear her sputter-laugh from the kitchen, followed by a choked, “Oh my god, Tate —”
“What did he do?”
She doesn’t answer Carter but walks back toward the living room holding her phone, that little grin fighting her lips tells me she’s loving it, even if she’s pretending she’s not.
I grin when I see my own tweet staring back at me. ““You’re welcome.”
“That’s how we’re announcing things hmm?”
“You liked it.”
She huffs, trying so hard to look scandalized. “My chat is already out of pocket. This is going to break them.”
“They should thank me.”
She’s blushing when she turns away, heading back to the kitchen. I watch her hips sway on purpose, her messy braid falling over her shoulder like she knows she’s baiting me.
She is, which is why I know she hasn’t checked her DMs yet. Yet.
A minute later—
“Tate…”
“Yeah, pretty?”
I hear Carter’s footsteps now, coming from the kitchen. “What the hell did you just—”
“She opened the message,” I say, deadpan, kicking my feet up onto the coffee table.
“Tate.” Haven tries again, her voice half scolding.
“I did nothing pretty—you—”
“What did you send her?”
I stretch. “Just a little morning motivation.”
Carter reaches for Haven’s phone, she yanks it out of his grasp. “Nope.”
“Haven.”
“I’m not letting you read that.”
He groans. “Ew, why do I even ask?”
“Because you still hope for the best,” I mutter. “Cute.”
Carter shoots me a glare and walks back into the kitchen
But judging by the way Haven bites her lip and still won’t make eye contact she’s not mad about it. Not even a little.
My tweet is still doing numbers, and now my inbox is catching up. I scroll through the DMs lazily, watching pick-me energy come in at full volume.
[@pixieblood]: i can scream louder than her
[@fraggedinheels]: if you ever want a real duo partner
[@cliplick]: just say the word and i’ll drop to my knees
Jesus Christ. I arch a brow at one and toss my phone on the couch without replying.
Haven’s voice cuts in from the kitchen. “Who’s blowing you up?”
Carter glances over his shoulder, halfway through slicing an apple. “Someone better not be messaging her.”
“Relax.” I shrug, picking up my phone again just to make a point. “They’re all messaging me.”
Carter snorts. “You did tweet like you were taking applications.”
I grin. “Didn’t say I was accepting them.”
Silence. Haven’s arms are crossed. She leans against the wall, pretending to scroll through her own phone. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t have to.
Carter notices too. His brows draw together as he sets the knife down and wipes his hands on a dish towel. “Babe?”
She doesn’t look up. “Nothing.”
I meet Carter’s eyes over the top of her head. He tilts his chin, silent cue: Fix it.
So I attempt to. I pat the spot on the couch beside me, but I’m met with that look in her eye that says she’s about to murder me or climb on top of me. Possibly both, don’t really mind which order it happens in. I spread my legs a little wider and wait.
She crosses her arms. “You’re insane.”
“I’ll let you take your anger out on me pretty.”
She huffs.
The rest of the afternoon passes in small, stolen glances and unfinished sentences. None of us say it out loud, but something in the air evens out again.
Dinner was easy after that. Carter did most of the work, somehow managing to keep the smoke to a minimum, though Haven managed to burn the garlic bread. I nearly set off the smoke alarm myself when I forgot the oven mitt wasn’t actually flameproof.
The second the sun dips lower behind the skyline, Haven yanks her hoodie over her head and looks at us with a soft, pleading expression. “Let’s walk. Please.”
We finish cleaning up the dishes and step outside.
The air is sharper than yesterday, carrying that crisp edge.
Leaves skitter across the sidewalk in shades of amber and rust. Music thumps faintly from a party a few blocks over, a car roars past with bass so loud it shakes the air, and a guy yells about a dog bolting into someone’s yard.
Haven threads her fingers through mine without asking. Carter walks on her other side, hand locked with hers, the grin on his face wide and impossibly satisfied. It’s annoyingly perfect.
We pass a couple walking a golden retriever of course and the guy does a double take at our little trio. I let a smirk tug at the corner of my mouth. Carter nudges her side lightly. “Think we look like a math problem?” he jokes.
Haven laughs and leans toward him. Carter leans down too, brushing his lips over hers in a soft, sweet kiss. I watch, that familiar ache stirring in my chest. She’s laughing against him and I know it’s not about me but part of me can’t stop wanting to be the one pressing into her lips.
I step a little closer, thumb brushing along the back of her hand, feeling her pulse, her warmth.
Before Carter leans in again, I tilt my head and press my lips fully to hers.
Her fingers tighten around mine, and I feel her shiver at the contact.
She doesn’t break her grip on either of us.
She’s mine in a different way, and I let the thought settle as we keep walking deeper into the evening, the leaves crunching underfoot and the sun finally dipping behind the horizon.
When we get back to the apartment, she kicks off her shoes and flops face-down onto the couch with a groan. “I’m never moving again.”
“You said that yesterday,” Carter chuckles, heading into the kitchen.
“And it was true then too.”
I toss her a throw pillow, which she catches and immediately hugs to her chest. Carter returns with a bowl of popcorn and those chocolate-dipped pretzels she keeps pretending she doesn’t love.
We all sprawl. Legs tangled and movie queued.
Nothing matters right now except this couch and the comfort of skin against skin and breath against breath. Until it does.
About twenty minutes in, I stand up. “I need a minute,” I say, quickly heading down the hall to the bathroom.
Haven starts to move, shifting up like she’s about to follow, concern tightening her features. “Tate—?”
Carter touches her arm gently. “Let him go,” he says. “He just… needs a minute.”
She hesitates, eyes glued toward the hallway. Then she nods, even if it looks like it hurts a little to sit back down.
I immediately blast the hot water in the sink, steam curls around the edges of the mirror. My reflection’s fogged out quickly thank fuck. I’m not in the mood to look myself right now.
I close my eyes and brace my palms against the tile. I should feel better than this, but I don’t. I feel cracked.
I’m walking around with every inch of softness she’s ever given me packed into my ribs, trying not to let it leak out.
The pressure builds in my throat, that knot of everything I won’t say. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m falling in love or unraveling in it.
The water beats down like it’s trying to drown the noise in my head. I drag in a breath. Let it out slow.
My chest tightens the way it used to when I was ten, hiding Carter in the garage while Mom screamed at another boyfriend who wouldn’t leave fucking leave.
It’s easier to be blunt, to be cold. Easier to push people away than let them see the cracks. The truth is, those cracks are where the world got to me first. Our mom… she didn’t have it in her. Not then, not ever. Her boyfriends were the kind of men who left bruises that weren’t just on skin.
Carter and I learned early that if we wanted to survive, someone had to take it. Sometimes that meant me taking it. Sometimes that meant standing between them and him, bracing for whatever bullshit she couldn’t stop.
I remember the nights she sat in the corner, crying quietly while her latest “love” called me a piece of shit for stepping in.
I learned to hold the anger. I learned to be still, to absorb all the physical, verbal, emotional punches and let them think I was nothing, while I figured out how to make sure Carter never felt like nothing.
That’s why when I feel weak or exposed, I get mad. It’s not rage for the sake of it, it’s a shield that kept me alive when nothing else could. Weakness is terrifying because it’s a reminder of nights when I couldn’t fix her, couldn’t fix the situation, couldn’t protect enough.
I see glimpses of it in Carter sometimes the hesitation, the worry that maybe he’s not enough and I want to fucking claw it out for him, but I can’t. I can only let the anger come first.
By seventeen, Carter and I had cut her out completely.
No calls, no letters, no explanations. It wasn’t easy, but it was survival.
No matter what I feel now I never look back, that life is behind us.
But every time I let someone in, the old instinct rises.
Protect. Stand tall. Absorb it all. Be unbroken.
The kind that makes you want to hurt something just so you can feel like you’re in control again.
But there’s nothing to hurt here except me, maybe that’s the point.
I press my forehead to the mirror and stay like that until the water starts to cool. Until my hands stop shaking. Until I can breathe without tasting the panic.
I finally turn the water off and I reach for the towel, I dry off, grab a clean hoodie and head back toward the living room.
Carter’s dozing, half-slumped over. Haven’s curled up with a blanket but looks up when I walk in. She doesn’t say anything. Just reaches out and hooks her pinky around mine. I don’t let go.
After the movie ends and the screen fades to black, I stay. I don’t move when Carter dozes off again mid-phone scroll. I don’t move when Haven starts tracing shapes on my arm like she’s sketching her thoughts straight into my skin.
She thinks I’m not paying attention. But then she whispers. “Tate … do you ever wonder what happens if this ends?”
“You mean us?”
She nods.
I let the silence stretch for a moment. “Yeah. I think about it. But then I remember how it feels when you look at me. I know I’d burn the fucking world down before I let it.”
She doesn’t speak, but just moves closer and pulls my arm tighter around her waist.
Sometimes I wonder how long this will last, more now that she brought it up.
She looks at me like I’m something holy and Carter always talks like I’m still worth saving.
What happens when she realize I’m not built to last?
What happens when I can’t keep my darkness from bleeding into her softness?
I stare at the ceiling and wonder if loving someone this hard means I’m destined to destroy them.
Pulled away from my thoughts by her sleeping, even breaths All I can think is that people like me don’t get happy endings. We get warning labels. We get told to stay away from soft things.
Haven is softness weaponized. She’s hope wrapped in a killstreak. I stare at her for a long time before I force myself to sleep.