CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gunnar's prediction about Odric's people proves accurate by that evening, a terse phone call relayed through three different channels before it finally reaches Thane directly, Odric's second in command making clear that the broken engagement is being received, on their end, as an act of bad faith rather than honesty, regardless of the reasoning behind it.
"They're saying we're pulling back on the fuel co-op agreement until there's a new plan on the table," Gunnar reports, dropping into the chair across from Thane's desk with the particular grimness of someone delivering news he already knows won't be well received.
"That agreement's been propping up half their supply chain for two years.
If they actually follow through, it's going to hurt both charters, not just theirs. "
I'm in the room for this conversation, which feels different, deliberate, Thane having pulled a second chair up beside his own without comment when I hovered uncertainly in the doorway earlier.
It's such a small thing, and it lands heavier than it probably should, the simple fact of being included instead of protected from.
I settle into the chair, aware of Gunnar's brief, assessing glance in my direction before he apparently decides not to comment on my presence at all, which feels like its own small victory, one more sign that whatever's shifting between Thane and me isn't just being tolerated by the people around us, it's simply being accepted as the new shape of things.
"What's Odric's actual health status right now," Thane asks, all business, though I can see the toll of the day sitting behind his eyes. "Is he lucid enough to actually make decisions, or is this his people posturing on his behalf while he's compromised?"
"Compromised is the word his doctors are using.
Ravinia's basically running point on charter decisions already, has been for weeks if I'm honest, we just weren't saying it out loud because it made the merger timeline feel more urgent than admitting the truth would have.
" Gunnar rubs a hand over his jaw, tired.
"Which means whatever gets negotiated next probably goes through her, not him. "
Something shifts in Thane's expression, a plan visibly forming behind his eyes.
"That might actually be better than what we had.
She's sharper than her father gives her credit for, and she's not going to let personal feelings drive charter decisions.
I'll call her tomorrow, propose a new framework, something built on mutual resource sharing instead of a marriage neither of us actually wanted. "
"You think she'll take that meeting? After this morning?" Gunnar's skepticism is fair, and I watch Thane consider it seriously instead of dismissing it.
"I think she's professional enough to separate the two conversations.
I have to believe that, actually, because the alternative is watching two charters destabilize over something that was never going to be a sustainable solution anyway.
" He looks to me then, something checking in with me directly in the glance.
"What do you think? You've talked to her more honestly than most of us have in the last week. "
The question surprises me, the simple fact of being asked rather than managed around, and I take a moment before answering, genuinely considering it rather than offering something easy.
"I think she'll take the meeting," I say finally.
"She told me this morning she's not interested in being anyone's villain, and I believed her.
I think if you come to her with something practical, something that actually serves her charter instead of just easing your own conscience, she'll hear you out. "
Thane nods slowly, something decided settling into his posture, and the conversation moves on into logistics, timelines, what a revised agreement might actually look like, and I find myself contributing more than I expect to, my outsider's perspective apparently useful in a negotiation neither Thane nor Gunnar can see clearly from inside it.
"You'd need something concrete to offer beyond just goodwill," I point out at one point, watching both men consider it.
"Ravinia said her charter needs stability more than symbolism.
If you can put real numbers behind the resource sharing, guaranteed fuel allocation, maybe medical support given what I can offer, that's going to land better than an apology ever could. "
"She's right," Gunnar says, glancing at Thane. "That's smarter than anything I had."
Thane studies me for a moment, something proud and warm moving across his face despite the gravity of the conversation. "Yeah," he says. "She usually is."
By the time Gunnar finally leaves, well past nine, the office has the particular exhausted, companionable quiet of people who've worked hard together toward something that finally feels solvable instead of impossible.
I stretch, feeling the day in every muscle, and glance toward the small window where the last of the evening light has already given way to full dark, the first hard frost of the season starting to etch itself across the glass in delicate, spreading patterns.
Winter's arriving in earnest now, the mild rain of the past week finally hardening into something colder, more final, and I find the sight of it oddly fitting, like the weather itself has decided to mark the shift underway inside these walls.
"Thank you," Thane says, once we're alone, leaning back in his chair, exhaustion and something warmer both visible in his face. "For today. For being in that room instead of waiting outside it."
"You asked me to be there."
"I did. I'm glad you said yes." He studies me for a long moment, something shifting in the quality of his attention, less about the charter now, more about the two of us sitting alone in a small office at the end of a very long day. "Come here."
I don't hesitate this time, crossing to where he's sitting and letting him pull me down into his lap, the office chair creaking under the shift in weight, both of us laughing quietly at the ordinary, undignified logistics of it before the laughter fades into something quieter, more charged, his hand coming up to cradle my jaw, thumb brushing along my cheekbone with a gentleness that undoes something in my chest more thoroughly than any grand declaration could.
"I keep waiting to wake up," he admits, voice low, honest in a way exhaustion seems to strip clean of any remaining guard. "Three years of telling myself this wasn't allowed to happen again, and now you're just here, in my lap, in my office, and I don't know how to trust that it's real yet."
"It's real." I press my forehead to his, breathing him in, the specific, familiar scent of him underneath the day's exhaustion, motor oil and rain and something warmer that's simply him. "I'm not going anywhere tonight, Thane. Not this time."
He kisses me then, slow and unhurried in a way the rain soaked urgency outside the hospital wasn't, both of us finally given the luxury of time instead of stolen minutes, and when he finally stands, lifting me easily with him, I don't protest, don't overthink it, just let three years of careful distance dissolve into something neither of us has to manage or measure anymore.
We make our way to his room down the hall, quiet, unhurried, the clubhouse settled into its late night stillness around us, and what happens after the door closes behind us is unhurried too, careful and tender in a way that feels like both of us relearning something we used to know by heart, old familiarity meeting three years of separate growth, every touch a kind of conversation neither of us needs words for tonight.
Afterward, tangled together in the dark, his heartbeat steady and slow under my ear, I feel something settle in my chest that I haven't felt in three years, not relief exactly, something quieter and more permanent than that, something closer to the specific, unguarded peace of finally being exactly where I'm supposed to be.
"Stay," he murmurs against my hair, already half asleep, one arm curled protectively around me. "Just stay."
I do. For the first time since I crossed the county line eight days ago, I let myself fall asleep without counting anything at all, no exits, no breaths, no careful management of the ground beneath me, just the steady, unhurried rhythm of a man who never stopped waiting, and a peace I haven't trusted myself to feel in far too long.