34. Reva #3
By the time we get back to Blackwood House, I’m running on fumes and spite.
Mostly fumes.
Cal is still alive. That update came during the last meeting of the day, and I had to step into a hallway to cry where only Ever could see me.
He is stable. Still sedated, with no new bleeding. I’ve decided to embrace the word stable for exactly as long as it behaves.
Delia and Marisol stay at Isabel’s house with Nash’s men, three women from La Rosa who have already chosen the new shape of things, and enough security to make the property look less like a mansion and more like a guarded embassy.
I come home.
Home. The word slips in when I’m too tired to stop it.
Blackwood House is quiet when we arrive. The familiar dark halls and warm lamps hit me so hard I have to stop just inside the door. Homer, finally freed from his leash, shoots past my ankles like a furry cannonball and disappears toward the kitchen.
“Traitor,” I call weakly.
He doesn’t care.
Shiloh takes my coat. Ever takes the bag I forgot I was carrying. Deacon locks the door behind us. Nash speaks briefly to a man in the hall, then turns back and looks at me.
All four of them are watching too closely.
“No.”
Shiloh blinks. “We haven’t said anything.”
“You have faces. The faces have looks.”
“I was born with this one.”
“Tragic.”
His smile is soft.
Ever’s hand settles at my lower back and guides me toward the stairs.
I let him because my bones have become decorative.
Nash walks ahead, Deacon behind, Shiloh beside me.
No one says the obvious things. That I killed Isabel.
That my sister now sits in her chair. That my mother is alive and didn’t come home with me.
That Cal is going to wake up—because he will wake up, damnit—to a world rearranged around his hospital bed.
My room is warm. Our room, maybe. I am too tired to think about pronouns.
Someone has turned down the bed. There is water on the nightstand and clean pajamas folded on the chair. The sight of all that care nearly ruins me. I don’t have enough strength left to defend against softness.
Ever helps me out of my shoes, and Shiloh pulls the blankets back.
I crawl into bed.
The mattress takes me in with indecent kindness.
I curl on my side, pulling the blanket to my chin.
Shiloh slides in behind me first, warm and easy, one arm careful around my waist. Ever sits at the foot of the bed to remove his boots, then stretches out on the other side of me with his hand over my ankle.
Nash sits in the chair near the window like he plans to keep watch from there until the sun burns out.
Deacon remains by the door.
Of course he does.
My eyes are half closed, but I feel him there. The hesitation. The old exit opening under his feet. Deacon Cross, patron saint of leaving before anyone can ask him to stay.
He turns toward the hall. Nash’s voice stops him.
“You don’t have to leave.”
Deacon doesn’t move.
Shiloh lifts his head behind me. “Thank God. I was afraid we were going to have to lure him with candy.”
Ever shifts on the mattress, making room without looking at Deacon. “There’s plenty of space.”
“That was almost friendly,” Shiloh says.
“It was just fucking logistical.”
“Your love language.”
My mouth moves against the pillow.
“If anyone makes this weird, I’m biting.”
Shiloh’s laugh brushes the back of my neck. “Sleepy green with teeth. Still my favorite shade.”
I’m too tired to tell him that makes no sense.
The mattress dips.
Deacon.
He lies on the far side of the bed, beyond Ever at first, stiff as a man braced for regret. Then Ever shifts again, practical and silent, and suddenly Deacon is close enough that his hand can reach mine where it rests on the blanket.
He doesn’t take it. I take his. His fingers interlock slowly with mine. Carefully. Like staying is a skill he has to learn by touch.
Nash leaves the chair at last. He gets into bed on Shiloh’s other side, one arm reaching over him to settle heavy and warm across my hip. Shiloh grumbles about being used as a bridge. Nash tells him he talks too much. Ever’s thumb moves once over my hip. Deacon’s hand tightens around mine.
Four men.
One bed.
No sex. No performance. No demand.
Just heat and breath and enough weight to keep me from floating away from myself.
I think of Delia in Isabel’s chair, making it hers by refusing to become the woman who left it empty.
I think of Marisol on the terrace, writing names with shaking hands.
I think of Cal in the hospital, stable and stubborn and not dead yet.
I think of Homer, descended from an orange cat with the wrong name, somewhere downstairs probably committing a felony against curtains.
I think of Isabel bleeding on church stone.
Then I stop. For tonight, I let the living be louder.
Deacon’s thumb brushes my knuckle.
Nash’s voice is low in the dark. “Rest, little wolf.”
I could tell him not to boss me. I could tell them all this is too crowded, too much, too soft after a day with so much in it.
Instead, I hold Deacon’s hand harder and let myself sleep.