29. Home Again
Home Again
Rowan
T he smell of coffee nudged me awake. I cracked an eye open to sunlight slanting through cheap blinds and over a cityscape that buzzed with the endless promise of chaos outside.
The other side of the bed was empty but still warm, sheets rumpled where Elias had been sleeping when I'd stumbled in after the gig.
I'd found him curled on his side, face soft in the dim light from the street, one arm stretched across the space where I usually slept like he'd been reaching for me even in dreams. I'd slipped in beside him as quietly as I could, not wanting to wake him but needing the comfort of his presence after a night of playing music that felt hollow without him there to hear it.
In the kitchen, I could hear movement—soft footsteps, the click of a cupboard, and Elias humming under his breath in a way that made the place feel more like home than it ever had when it was just me.
I padded in, still in yesterday's clothes, wrinkled and smelling faintly of cigarettes.
Elias was standing at the counter, sleeves pushed up, working the French press with the careful focus he brought to everything.
He was in a sweater I'd never seen before—soft gray, too big in the shoulders—and something about that small detail made me want to wrap myself around him and never let go.
He glanced over his shoulder, sensing me before I spoke. “Morning.”
I grunted, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and let myself drift close. He poured coffee into two mugs and handed me one, our fingers brushing. I wrapped my hands around the warmth, letting the first sip hit my system like a benediction.
“You always make it this strong?” I teased, voice still rough from sleep.
He arched an eyebrow, mouth twitching. “You’re the one who said real coffee should taste like regret and broken promises.”
“That does sound like me,” I admitted, stepping up behind him and looping my free arm around his waist, pressing my face into his shoulder. He was warm, solid, and he leaned back into me without hesitation.
His hand found mine, lacing our fingers together over his stomach. “You always get this clingy before caffeine?”
“Only when you’re in my kitchen,” I said, pressing a lazy kiss to the nape of his neck. “Otherwise I’m a real bastard before noon.”
He snorted, shifting just enough to turn in my arms. I let him, not quite ready to give up the contact, and he rewarded me with a soft kiss—slow and unhurried, the kind that spoke of too many words left unsaid. My mug bumped against his hip, and I grinned against his mouth.
“Careful,” he murmured, lips brushing mine. “That’s hot. ”
“I could say the same about you,” I shot back, and the easy laughter that followed felt like sunlight in my chest.
He kissed me again, deeper this time, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my head.
I let the mug clatter onto the counter and wrapped both arms around him, pulling him flush against me, soaking up the warmth and certainty that only he ever seemed able to give.
He tasted like coffee and hope and something I’d been craving for longer than I could admit.
Outside, a siren wailed, but inside everything stilled—just Elias’s breath against my mouth, the gentle brush of his thumbs at my jaw, his heart beating steady against my chest. We broke apart only to breathe, foreheads pressed together, his fingers still tangled in my hair.
“I took care of Victor,” Elias said finally, voice carefully neutral, but I could feel the tension vibrating through his body.
I drew back just enough to search his eyes, my hands still firm on his waist. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he won't be a problem anymore. For either of us.”
The words should have brought relief, but instead they sent a chill through me. Victor had been many things, most of them terrible, but he’d also been the kind of man who didn’t go away quietly. My pulse picked up, and Elias felt it—his arms tightening, anchoring me.
“What did you do?”
“I had evidence,” he said. “Documentation of his... activities. Financial improprieties, abuse of power, the kind of thing that ruins political careers and sends people to prison.”
“Evidence from where?”
“People talk. Especially when they've been hurt.” His voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath. “Victor made a lot of enemies over the years. It just took the right person asking the right questions to get them to speak up.”
I studied his face, looking for signs of whatever this had cost him. Because it had cost him, I could see that in the careful way he held himself, the exhaustion around his eyes that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
“Why?” I asked finally.
“Why what?”
“Why go to all that trouble? Why risk everything to take him down?” The question came out smaller than I'd intended, vulnerability bleeding through despite my best efforts to stay guarded. “Why fight for someone who was stupid enough to fall for his lies in the first place?”
Elias set down his own mug and took a step closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne, see the flecks of darker blue in his gray eyes.
“Because you're worth fighting for,” he said, and his voice was steady, certain, like he was stating a fundamental law of physics instead of offering his opinion.
No one had ever fought for me before. Not my father, who'd walked away when things got complicated. Not my mother, who'd loved me but from a careful distance. Not the parade of strangers who'd used my body without caring about the person inside it.
But Elias had seen me at my worst, had watched me self-destruct and make terrible choices and still thought I was worth saving.
“I want you to come back with me,” he said. “To Harbor's End. Not forever, not unless you want to. Just for a while.”
The thought of going back to that small town, to the place where everyone had watched my mother live and die, where gossip spread like wildfire and secrets were impossible to keep, sent panic racing through my system.
“I can't,” I said automatically. “People there, they'll talk. They'll make assumptions.”
“Let them talk. ”
“You don't understand what it's like to be the center of that kind of attention. To have everyone watching, waiting for you to fuck up so they can feel better about their own lives.”
“You're right,” he said. “I don't understand that. But I understand what it's like to be so afraid of other people's opinions that you end up living in a cage you built yourself.”
The words hit too close to home, and I turned away, staring out the kitchen window at the narrow slice of sky visible between apartment buildings.
“What if it doesn't work?” I asked. “What if we get there and realize this whole thing was just trauma bonding?”
“Then we figure that out too.”
“You keep saying that like it's simple.”
“Maybe it is simple. Maybe we've been making it complicated because complicated feels safer than admitting we want the same thing.”
I turned back to him, searching his face for doubt, for the moment when he'd realize what he was offering and take it back. But there was only patience there, and something that looked like hope.
“One day at a time,” he said again, like it was a promise.
It took us a week of planning and conversations with the band before we were ready to head back to Harbor's End. The band didn't take the news well, obviously, but I assured them that I could return at any time and that they would continue as a group in my absence.
The drive to Harbor's End stretched six hours, most of it spent in comfortable silence broken only by the soft sound of Roxie purring in her carrier and occasional comments about traffic or weather.
Elias had offered to book us a flight, but I'd wanted the transition to be gradual, needed time to prepare myself for returning to a place that held too many complicated memories.
We stopped twice for gas and coffee, and once so Roxie could stretch her legs in a rest area parking lot.
She stayed close to my feet, suspicious of the open space and the strange smells, but she didn't try to run.
Smart cat. She'd learned that sometimes the safest place was right beside the person who'd chosen to keep you.
As we got closer to the coast, I could smell the salt in the air, could feel the particular quality of light that came from being near large bodies of water.
It was different from the Hudson River, more alive somehow, more wild.
Harbor's End had always smelled like possibility and disappointment in equal measure, like dreams that might come true if you were brave enough or lucky enough or both.
“You okay?” Elias asked as we passed the sign welcoming us to Harbor's End, population 8,347.
“Ask me tomorrow.”
The town looked smaller than I remembered, more worn around the edges. Some of the storefronts that had been boarded up when I'd left were open again, but others had closed in the intervening months. Change came slowly to places like this, but it came, whether people wanted it or not.
The house looked exactly as I'd left it but somehow different. The paint looked fresher, and someone had been working in the garden. The porch step that had been sagging when I'd left was straight and solid now, reinforced with new boards that hadn't quite weathered to match the old ones.
“You fixed the step,” I said as we pulled into the driveway.
“Among other things.” He turned off the engine and sat for a moment, hands still on the wheel. “I had a lot of time to think after you left. About the things that needed fixing.”
There was weight in those words, layers of meaning that went beyond home repairs. I wanted to ask what else he'd fixed, what else he'd changed, but the question felt too big for the fragile peace we'd managed to build during the drive.