Chapter 38
REID
Laine's hand clamps down on mine.
Not a squeeze. A clamp — sudden and hard, the kind of grip that sends my head on a swivel before I even think about it. I'm scanning left, right, behind us — crowd, stalls, a kid with a balloon, nothing. No threat. Nobody too close.
I look to Blake.
That's automatic. Something spooks one of us, I find Blake. That's how it works. Has been since Afghanistan — you hear something wrong, you find your partner's eyes and figure out the play.
But Blake's not looking at me. He's not looking at anything. He's just... further away than he was three seconds ago. Half a step back, hand at his side, face already shutting down into that blank mask I haven't seen in weeks.
His hand is empty.
I look at Laine's other hand. Pressed against her hip. Fingers curled tight.
And then I see Joyce. Flower stall. Heading our way.
Oh.
Oh, Laine. Fuck. You didn't.
"Laine!" Joyce waves with a fistful of peonies, navigating the crowd. "I thought that was you!"
"Joyce! Hey!"
Laine's voice comes out high and bright and completely wrong. I know every version of this woman's voice — the sleepy one, the stubborn one, the one that goes low and soft in the dark. This isn't any of them. This is a stranger's voice coming out of her mouth, and it makes my chest hurt.
She's still gripping my hand. I can feel her pulse hammering through her fingers.
She dropped Blake and kept me. She saw someone she loves and her reflex was to keep me and drop him.
I don't know what to do with that. I don't know where to put it.
Because right now Blake is standing six inches further from us than he was ten seconds ago, and his face is doing that thing — that perfectly calm, perfectly controlled, perfectly empty thing that means he's taking a hit and packing it away somewhere I can't reach.
I've watched him do that for years. On deployment.
After Jared. In the dark months when I was coming out of the dark and he was being the robotic caregiver.
Someone who has no feelings of his own. I know what it looks like when Blake Moore decides something isn't worth fighting about because he isn't worth fighting for.
Don't. Don't do that. Don't put this in that box.
But I can't say anything. Joyce is right here, beaming at us, and Laine's performing, and Blake's already locked it down.
Joyce reaches us, slightly breathless, cheeks pink from the sun. Her eyes sweep the group — me beside Laine, Blake slightly behind, our bags of produce and flowers and hot sauce.
"Well, look at this crew." She's smiling, warm and real. "What a beautiful morning to be out."
"Joyce, you remember Reid."
Okay. That's weird. Even Joyce has to feel it. I've known her way longer than Laine has. She knows that.
But Joyce just rolls with it. "Of course." She squeezes my arm. "How are you, honey? Still saving lives?"
"Every day. Sometimes twice before lunch." The words come out easy because easy is what I do. But my head is still six inches to my right, where Blake is standing very still with his hands at his sides. "I like the blouse, Joyce."
"Oh, stop." She waves me off, pleased. Then turns to Blake.
Come on, Joyce. See him. Please see him.
I don't know why that matters so much right now. Maybe because Laine just made him invisible, and I need someone to undo it.
Joyce looks at Blake the way she probably looks at patients — thorough, unhurried, not missing the still set of his shoulders. Her smile softens a little. "And you're Blake."
"Yes, ma'am." He steps forward. Nothing in his voice gives him away. Not a crack, not a waver. He's locked it all down so tight you'd never know anything happened, and that's worse than if he'd flinched. "Good to meet you."
"Laine's told me about you." Joyce takes his hand and holds on. I watch her clock the calluses, the roughness, the wood stain that never fully scrubs out. "She says you restore things. Old houses, woodwork."
"Yes, ma'am. Historical preservation, mostly."
"That must take incredible patience. Getting all the details right. Matching what was there before."
"It's the details that matter," Blake says. "Anyone can replace a piece. The skill is in making something look like it was never broken."
Something crosses Joyce's face. "I imagine that applies to more than just woodwork."
Blake goes quiet for a beat. "Sometimes."
Joyce pats his hand and releases it. "Well. I can see why Laine talks about you the way she does."
She sees him. Thank God, she sees him.
And that's the thing that twists the knife, isn't it? Joyce just met Blake and she gets it. She's standing here treating him like he belongs — because he does, because Laine told her he does, because this woman already knew about all three of us — and Laine still dropped his hand.
Joyce already knew. There was nothing to hide. And Laine flinched anyway.
Don't be angry at her. She's already drowning. You can see it in her shoulders.
I'm not angry. I'm not. I'm just — I don't know what I am.
"So what's good today?" Joyce asks, peering into our bags. "Oh, those tomatoes look perfect. Where'd you find those?"
"Blake picked them," Laine says, and her voice is almost normal now. Almost. "He has a whole system."
I can see Blake work to engage. To participate in a conversation after the pain. "It's not a system. It's basic quality assessment."
"He squeezed eleven tomatoes, Joyce. Eleven."
"Vine-ripened produce deserves careful selection. Laine taught me that," Blake says, flashing a weak smile, and Joyce laughs — real, delighted — and for a second it almost feels okay.
Almost. Except I'm watching Laine watch Joyce accept Blake without hesitation, and I can see the shame building behind her eyes.
She's connecting the same dots I already connected.
Joyce was never the problem. The flinch wasn't protection — it was reflex.
And reflexes tell you things about yourself you'd rather not know.
Joyce tells us about her husband's tomato plants.
I ask follow-up questions because that's what I do — keep the ball rolling so nobody has to sit in the quiet and get weird about it.
Blake offers something about soil acidity, and Joyce actually pulls out her phone to take notes, and it's good.
Normal. The kind of easy, nothing interaction Blake almost never gets.
"You should come over sometime," Joyce says to Blake. "Harold would love to pick your brain."
"I'd be happy to take a look."
"Don't say that. He'll corner you for hours." She tucks her phone away and looks at the three of us. That warm, steady gaze. "You look good together, you know that? All three of you."
We did. About ten minutes ago, we really did.
"Thanks, Joyce," I say.
"I mean it." She points at Laine. "This one was running on fumes for months. Night shifts and too much coffee and not enough people in her corner. Look at her now."
"Joyce—"
"I'm just saying. Whatever this is—" she gestures at the three of us, "—it's working. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." She kisses Laine's cheek, squeezes Blake's arm, waves at me. "I've got to find Harold before he buys another plant he'll kill in a week. You kids enjoy your morning."
She disappears into the crowd.
We stand silent in the space she left behind.
Blake clears his throat. "We still need garlic."
Garlic. He's moving us to garlic. Because that's what he does — absorbs the hit, keeps the line moving, makes it easier for everyone else.
"Yeah," Laine manages. "Garlic."
We find the garlic. Basil. A jar of local honey.
I carry bags to the truck twice — partly to be useful, partly because I need thirty seconds alone to breathe.
Each time I come back, they're in the same configuration.
Laine and Blake close but not touching, his hands full of bags because full hands don't have to reach for anyone.
And Laine looks completely miserable.
She doesn't reach for him again. I keep waiting for it.
Keep watching her hand at her side, thinking come on, just take his hand, just do it, fix this.
But she doesn't. And Blake doesn't offer.
And I'm walking through this market holding my girlfriend's hand while my best friend carries all the bags alone and I want to scream.
This isn't how it's supposed to work. We were doing so well. Thirty minutes ago he was making jokes about the cheese stall.
The walk back to the truck is quiet. I try twice — point out a stall, make a comment about the weather. Laine smiles at me. Blake doesn't respond. The jokes land on dead air and I stop trying because forcing it is worse than the silence.
I drive. Laine takes the passenger seat. Blake gets in the back.
Same seat he sat in on the way here. Except on the way here it was just the back seat. Now it means something.
I adjust the rearview mirror. Catch a glimpse of him — jaw set, eyes on the window, hands resting on his thighs. Not clenched. Not fidgeting. Just still.
Hurting.
I turn on the radio. Some folk station. Low enough that it fills the silence without pretending anyone's enjoying it.
Laine stares out her window. Her hands are in her lap now, fingers twisted together. She hasn't looked at the back seat once.
Say something. One of you, say something.
Nobody does.
Twelve minutes to home and I'm checking the rearview every thirty seconds like it's a patient monitor.
Blake hasn't moved. Same position, same expression, same careful blankness.
Laine's jaw is doing the thing — the one Blake always calls out — where she's composing a whole dissertation in her head about how terrible she is.
They're both spiraling in opposite directions and I'm up here with my hands on the wheel and no idea how to reach either of them.
Some emotional support you are, Garrison.