Chapter 16
Vaughn
It's been two hours since I texted Robin. No response.
I'm not that guy. I'm not the guy who panics over response times, who reads meaning into silence, who spirals when a text goes unanswered. I'm patient. I'm steady. I'm the second who holds the line when the alpha can't.
But Robin should have had a break by now.
Even on bad Gordon days — a heart emoji, a joke, a complaint.
Even when his phone is technically banned from the line, he sneaks something during breaks.
I know this because I've been tracking it, because Vaughn-the-mechanic reads patterns the way he reads engines, and Robin's pattern just broke.
I send another text: Hope work's not too crazy today.
Nothing.
At four o'clock, Toby walks in wearing a cardigan covered in llamas wearing sunglasses. Normal day. Normal Toby.
"Hey, Vaughn!" He settles onto a barstool, cheerful. "Knox around?"
"Office."
He starts to head that way, then stops. Looks at me. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You're staring at your phone."
"Have you heard from Robin today?"
Toby pulls out his phone. Scrolls. Frowns. "No. He usually sends me memes during his break." He tries calling. I watch his face change. "Straight to voicemail."
"His phone's off?"
"Or dead. He's terrible about charging it." But Toby's frown is deepening, and I can see him doing the same math I've been doing. Robin's terrible about charging, yes. Robin also texts Toby every single day. Every day for as long as they've been friends.
"Call Ash," I say.
Toby calls. I hear the conversation — muffled, fast, concern escalating on both ends. Ash didn't hear from Robin this morning either. Robin left for work at four and hasn't checked in.
Two minutes later Ash is downstairs, shirt untucked, face tight. Jason's right behind him. Knox emerges from the office. Silas appears at the top of the stairs. Ezra materializes from wherever Ezra goes when he's not visible, which is most of the time.
"When did you last hear from him?" Ash asks. Already pulling out his phone.
"This morning. He texted me at 4:52 when he left for work."
Ash calls Robin. Voicemail. Calls again. Voicemail.
"Let me check his location." He opens an app. His face goes still. "Phone's completely off."
"Maybe the battery—"
"Robin knows never to turn his phone completely off." Ash's voice has gone flat — military flat, the voice of a man switching from civilian to operational. "That's our rule. Since he was eighteen. Always be findable. He knows."
He dials another number. I watch his face cycle through confusion, alarm, cold fury.
"Yes, I need to speak to Robin Martinez. He works in your kitchen." Pause. "What do you mean he's not there?" Longer pause. His jaw tightens. "When? Is he okay? Hello?" He stares at his phone. "Hung up on me. Said Robin was fired this morning and hung up."
"Fired?" Toby's voice goes high. "Why? What happened?"
"I don't know. His phone's off, he's been fired, and no one's heard from him in hours." Ash is already moving. Jacket, boots, helmet — the economy of motion of a man who's run extractions. "If he's hurt, he'll go to my house. That's where we're going."
"I'm coming," I say.
"We all are," Knox says. Not asking. Telling.
The ride is fourteen minutes and it feels like an hour. Five bikes tearing through traffic, Ash in the lead because he knows the fastest route to his own house and because none of us are stupid enough to get between Ash Martinez and his brother right now.
We pull up to Ash's house. The whole pride.
An Uber is pulling away from the curb.
And Robin is walking up the driveway.
He's wearing his chef's jacket. The white fabric is covered in blood — dried now, stiff and brown, concentrated on the left side where his hand is cradled against his chest. His left hand is bandaged, white gauze wrapped thick around his palm.
His face is gray with exhaustion, eyes swollen, mouth set in a line that's trying very hard to be composed.
He sees us — all of us, standing on his lawn — and something in his expression shutters. Not surprise. Something worse. Resignation. The face of a man who wanted to get through the door before anyone saw.
"Hi," he says.
Every word I've prepared — the careful, patient, measured response — evaporates.
"Where the hell have you been?" It comes out harder than I mean. Sharper. The fear talking.
"Hospital."
"Hospital?" Toby rushes forward. "Robin, what happened? Is that blood?"
"Cut myself at work. Needed stitches. It's fine."
The word fine hits me like a thrown pan.
"It's fine?" I can hear myself and I can't modulate it. "You've been at the hospital for hours and your phone's been off and you think it's fine?"
"It's seven stitches. I handled it."
"You handled it." I hear it again — the word bother forming somewhere ahead of us in this conversation, inevitable, approaching like a train. "Alone."
"My phone was dying. I needed it for the Uber."
"They have phones at the hospital. They have chargers too, I'm sure."
His jaw tightens. The mask is cracking — I can see the exhaustion underneath, the pain, the shame — but he holds it. "I didn't think it was necessary to bother everyone."
There it is. Bother.
Ash steps forward. "You didn't think getting injured and going to the ER was worth mentioning?"
"I'm an adult. I can handle getting stitches by myself."
"Robin—" Toby starts.
"Also got fired." Robin says it flat, matter-of-fact, like he's reporting the weather. "So that's been my day. How was yours?"
The lawn is silent. All of us standing in the afternoon sun, and Robin in his bloody jacket looking at us like we're the problem.
"Why didn't you call me?" I ask.
The mask cracks. Just for a second — guilt and frustration and something desperate underneath, something that wants to say because I was scared but can't find the words.
"Because I don't need to be rescued every five fucking minutes.
" His voice is rising now, ragged, the performance finally failing.
"I already needed you to save me from a bad date.
I already cry on you about work. I'm not going to be the disaster boyfriend who can't even get stitches without holding someone's hand. "
Disaster boyfriend. The phrase he's been building toward for weeks — the core belief, the thing he tells himself in the dark. That he's too much. That needing help is the same as being a burden. That love has a limit and he's exceeding it.
"That's not—"
"I'm tired." He cuts me off, and his voice breaks on it. "I'm covered in blood, I just lost my job, my hand hurts like hell, and I really don't need everyone standing around staring at me like I'm some kind of child who can't take care of himself."
"Robin." Ash, gentle now. "We were worried."
"Well, I'm here. I'm alive. Crisis averted." He pushes past us toward the door, and I see his good hand shaking. "I need to shower."
I reach for him. "Robin, wait—"
He pulls away. The flinch is small and terrible. "Just — give me some space. Okay? Please. I just need to be alone right now."
He goes inside. The door closes.
We stand in the driveway. Seven people, helpless.
"Let him cool off," Ash says after a long moment. His voice is controlled but his eyes are not. "He gets like this when he's overwhelmed. Push now and he'll shut down completely."
"He went to the hospital alone." I hear my own voice and it sounds hollow. "He sat there getting stitches by himself because he didn't want to bother me."
"It's not about you," Toby says gently. "It's about him not knowing how to accept help."
"I should go up—"
"No." Ash's hand on my arm. Firm. "Give him an hour. Let him shower, process, calm down. Then you can go."
An hour. He wants me to give Robin an hour.
Robin is upstairs right now, bleeding and fired and alone by choice, and I'm supposed to stand here and wait. I'm supposed to be patient. I'm supposed to trust the process.
My lion is pissed.
The others filter in around me as we all go inside and try to get comfortable.
Knox and Toby take the armchair. Jason starts making coffee — because Jason fixes things with food and warmth and when he can't fix them he makes coffee.
Silas sits at the table with a book he doesn't open.
Ezra stands by the window, watching the stairs.
I sit on Ash's couch with my hands on my knees and I count the minutes.
One. Two. Three.
Robin is upstairs. Hurt. Alone.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
He turned his phone off so I couldn't find him. He got stitches alone.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
The shower turns on upstairs. I can hear the pipes. He's trying to wash the day off with one hand and he can't even open his antibiotic bottle and he chose this — chose alone — because every model of love he's ever had taught him that needing someone is the first step toward losing them.
Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.
Ash goes upstairs. I hear the bedroom door open. Muffled voices. I can't make out words, but I can hear the shape of them — Ash's low and steady, Robin's cracking and raw.
The hardest hour of my life.
But I wait. Because Robin needs someone who waits. Someone who doesn't push past his boundaries even when his boundaries are stupid. Someone who's still here when the hour is up.
I'm still here.