30. Isaac
30
ISAAC
The call ends, but I don’t move. I’m still holding the phone to my ear like I might wake up if I let it go. My whole body is buzzing, numb and electric at the same time. It doesn’t feel real. Like maybe I imagined it. Like maybe if I move, it’ll all disappear.
Across the room, Talon Valdin watches me with an expression I can’t quite place. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe it’s irritation. Maybe it’s resignation. Whatever it is, he gives me a nod that doesn’t feel like approval so much as defeat.
“Good luck, Mr. Casey,” he says, voice dry.
I don’t trust that he won’t keep trying to manipulate things from the shadows. But right now, I don’t care.
Right now, all I can think is, he’s coming home.
My thoughts race as I leave the office and hurry back to the apartment. I want to clean. I want to change clothes. I want to do something that makes me feel like I deserve him showing up again. Like if I can control anything about the moment, I can make it perfect.
But the second I’m inside, I know there’s no time. My heart is pounding. I stand in the center of the room and spin like I’ve lost something, like there should be something I’m supposed to do.
I look at the clutter on the counter. The shirt I left draped over the back of a chair. I think about changing clothes. About shaving. About doing something to feel worthy of the man that is going to walk through the door soon.
But I can’t focus. I can’t stop pacing. Every noise from the street makes me jump. A dog barking. Tires crunching gravel. Footsteps that don’t stop at my door.
I peek through the blinds for the third time in as many minutes. I check the clock. I swear it’s been an hour. It hasn’t. It’s been seven minutes.
Then I hear it.
A car.
I don’t think. I bolt down the stairs two at a time and fling the door open just as the car pulls up.
He steps out.
My hoodie is too big on him, the sleeves bunched in his fists. His hair’s a mess. His eyes are rimmed in red. And I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
I’m gone.
I’m already moving, already crossing the sidewalk and pulling him into my arms before he can say a word. I lift him straight off the ground, arms locked tight around his back, and realize somewhere in the back of my mind that he’s gasping for air.
“Shit,” I murmur, but I still can’t let go. “Sorry. Sorry. I just–I couldn’t–"
“I’m okay,” he breathes into my neck. “Don’t let go.”
“Never.”
I carry him up the stairs like he weighs nothing. His arms are locked around my shoulders, and my heart is thundering.
Back inside the apartment, I finally set him down, but I don’t step back. My hands stay on his shoulders, then drift down to his arms, his waist. I link our fingers like maybe I can anchor him here with me.
We don’t speak. Not right away. I study him like he might vanish. His face, his mouth, the way his chest rises with each breath. I brush my thumb over his wrist, over the soft space where his pulse is racing beneath the skin.
We breathe each other in, standing in the same place for the first time since everything changed.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, eyes shining. “I didn’t want to leave. I thought if I stayed, you’d go to prison. I thought I had to lose you to save you.” He pauses, swallows hard.
I glance down at my ankle. “Well… something worked.”
His eyes follow mine. “No monitor.”
“I’m free.”
He exhales hard again, softer this time. “Thank fuck. Because I googled it, and conjugal visits aren’t actually a thing.”
A stunned laugh bursts out of me. Then he’s laughing too, and crying, and I’m laughing, and we’re both clinging to each other, forehead to forehead, our tears mixing with breathless kisses.
“He offered me everything,” I say after a beat. “A house. A future. Enough money to fix everything.”
“And you turned it down? What about your mom and Chelsey? That money could have fixed everything.”
“It wouldn’t have fixed losing you.”
He kisses me like that’s the only answer that’s ever mattered.
"Besides, you know they'd kill me if I let you go. There's not enough money in the world, kitten."
“I can’t believe he tried to buy you off,” he says, voice thick. “Tried to make you think I didn’t want you. That you weren’t enough… You're everything.”
We collapse like we’ve been holding ourselves upright for weeks. Like exhaustion and relief finally won out, and there’s nothing left to do but fall. It’s not graceful. It’s not planned. It’s just gravity and instinct and love pulling us down.
We sink to the floor in a tangle of limbs and relief, like the weight of everything finally cracked and we’re piecing ourselves back together in each other’s arms.
In the back of my mind, I know there are other pressing matters. The weight of everything we still have to deal with presses in. The gym is behind schedule. The bills are piling up. The repairs I’ve been putting off for the apartment aren’t going to fix themselves. Talon Valdin’s offer would’ve erased all of it in an instant, but accepting help from him was never an option. Not without selling my soul. Not without giving up the man I love.
I don’t have a plan yet. I’ll have to figure it out. Fast. Because something has to give.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I just want to hold him. To breathe him in. To feel his heartbeat under my hand and know he’s really here.
I thought I lost him. And I can’t let go of that feeling just yet. I can't let go of him . Can't stop touching, feeling, kissing, holding…
We lay tangled together on the floor, warm and safe and home.
Eventually, I lift him into my arms and carry him to the bedroom.
I carry him like I’m afraid the world might try to take him again. He doesn't let go either. His arms wind around my neck, face buried in my chest, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.
In the bedroom, I set him down slowly, carefully, but I don’t move away. I watch him. His eyes are glassy, lips red from crying and kissing and laughing. He looks wrecked and radiant all at once.
“You’re here,” I say, voice rough.
He nods, brushing his fingers down my jaw. “I’m here.”
Our mouths meet again. There’s no rush, just aching reverence. A promise sealed between us. I sink down with him, my hands splayed at his hips, his chest under mine, the warmth of him anchoring me to the moment. Every sigh, every shiver, is its own kind of prayer.
There’s no hurry. No desperation. Unlike this morning, when it felt frantic and like trying to hold on to something that was fading into oblivion. Just skin and breath and softness. We move like we’re memorizing each other all over again. Like we’re tracing out the shape of forgiveness and home and everything we almost lost.
Later, when we’re tangled in the blankets, breathless and spent, I hold him close and whisper, “You're everything, too. I love you. And I'd give up everything for you. My future, my freedom, my life. Everything."
He doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at me like I’m something special. Then he reaches out, fingers brushing over my chest, right where my heart is pounding against my ribs, and across the script that has become more than just a fighting philosophy.
“You already almost did,” he says softly. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure it wasn’t for nothing.”