30. Calliope #3
“Theo,” Idris says gently. “Come here, sweetheart. Let me check your temperature and get you settled for a little while.”
Theo looks at me first.
I squeeze his hand. “I’m not leaving the house.”
His fingers tighten. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
He lets go slowly, one finger at a time, then crosses to Idris with my sweater still wrapped around him like a claim.
Idris tucks him carefully against his side and kisses the top of his head, but his eyes stay on Sloane over Theo’s hair.
Something passes between them that I’m too tired to translate.
Sloane grabs my heavy wool coat from the mudroom hook. “Callie,” he says, holding it open. “Let’s go.”
I blink at him. “Theo—”
“Idris has him.” Sloane steps closer, lowering his voice so only I can hear. “You’re shaking, baby.”
I look down. He’s right. My hands are trembling at my sides, and now that Theo’s not holding one of them, I don’t know what to do with either. Sloane doesn’t ask me for the whole story while Garrett’s house breathes around us. He just holds the coat open and waits until I slide my arms into it.
Garrett’s voice reaches us from the hall before we make it to the back door. “Going somewhere?”
Sloane doesn’t turn around. He zips my coat, tugs the collar up around my throat, and takes my hand. “Out.”
There’s a pause behind us, short and controlled. “Theo’s evening routine starts soon.”
“Then it’s good Idris is here,” Sloane says, and this time he does look back. His body stays between Garrett and me, broad enough to block most of the hallway. “We’ll be back.”
He doesn’t wait for permission. He opens the back door, guides me through it, and the cold air hits my face hard enough that I almost cry from the relief of feeling something Garrett hasn’t touched.
The drive to the lake is quiet except for the heater and the turn signal.
Sloane doesn’t reach for my hand every thirty seconds the way he wants to.
I know he wants to because his fingers flex on the steering wheel, and because every mile or so he glances over like he’s checking whether I’m still inside my own skin.
I keep my hands tucked in my pockets and stare through the windshield at the bare trees blurring past.
He parks near the north path, where the lake is gray under a low, bruised sky. The wind comes off the water sharp enough to sting my cheeks, and I breathe it in like medicine. Sloane opens my door but doesn’t touch me until I step out and lean into him first.
“Walk with me,” he says, and his hand settles at my back.
We make it halfway down the railing before the shaking gets bad enough that I have to stop.
My hands close around the cold iron, and the pressure of it against my palms gives the fear somewhere to go.
Sloane steps behind me and wraps his arms around my middle, pulling me back against his chest, his mouth brushing my cheek in a kiss so soft it almost undoes me.
“You don’t have to explain it perfectly,” he murmurs. “I know something hurt.”
That’s the sentence that almost breaks me. Not because it fixes anything, but because he doesn’t demand a clean report before he believes the bruise is there. I lean back into him and stare out at the water until my eyes stop burning enough to speak.
“He made it feel dirty,” I say. The words come out thin, scraped raw around the edges. “Theo was talking to me, Sloane. He was happy and embarrassed and so sweet, and then Garrett walked in and suddenly I felt like I’d done something wrong.”
Sloane’s arms tighten, but he keeps his voice steady. “You didn’t.”
“I know.” I swallow hard, watching the wind rough up the lake’s surface. “I know it up here. But he looked at us like... like I’d let Theo make a mess of himself. Like I should’ve known better.”
Sloane presses his face into my hair. “Theo knows what he wants.”
“He said that.” My mouth twists because remembering Theo’s voice should warm me, and it does, but the warmth has Garrett’s shadow over it now. “He kept saying it. He was trying so hard to make sure I believed him.”
“He should never have had to prove it.” Sloane’s voice roughens, and one of his hands spreads over my stomach, grounding me the way he’s done a thousand times before. “But I’m glad he had the words with you. I’m glad he got to say them where you could hear.”
The shaking slowly eases while the lake wind pushes at us and Sloane keeps his body wrapped around mine. He doesn’t promise Garrett can’t hurt us, because Garrett already has. He only keeps me warm until I can loosen my grip on the railing.
Then Sloane kisses my cheek again and shifts his tone with deliberate care. “There was a duck here last week,” he says. “Meanest little bastard I’ve ever seen. Fought a piece of driftwood for ten full minutes like the wood had insulted its lineage.”
A sound leaves me before I can stop it. It isn’t quite a laugh, but Sloane takes it like a victory and keeps going.
He tells me about the student he saw walk straight into a glass door while texting, then about the coffee cart near my building that burns the beans so badly he thinks the owner might be conducting a war against taste.
His voice stays low and warm, folding absurd little pieces of the world around me until Garrett’s hallway feels farther away.
“And Theo,” he adds, smiling against my temple. “That little thief. He had your sweater on like he’d pulled off a heist. Did he look smug when he stole it?”
“He looked proud,” I say, and this time the laugh is real enough to hurt. “Like he expected applause.”
“He should get applause. Man has taste.” Sloane turns me in his arms, and his eyes move over my face with open, aching care. “There you are.”
I rest my hands on his chest. The leather of his jacket is cold under my palms, but underneath it, he’s warm and solid and mine. “Don’t let him make this smaller.”
“I won’t.” Sloane bends until his forehead touches mine. “But I need you to hear me. Garrett doesn’t get to be the only voice in your head when you’re scared. You come to me. Even if all you can say is that something feels wrong.”
I nod because words feel hard again, and he accepts the nod without making me dress it up.
When he kisses me, it’s slow and steady, less claim than reminder.
I let myself sink into it for a few breaths, into smoked cedar and brown sugar, into cold wind and warm hands and the pressure of his thumbs at my waist.
When we finally walk back to the truck, the house is still waiting for us at the end of the drive.
Theo is still close to his heat. Garrett is still inside those walls with his calm voice and careful hands.
None of that has changed, but Sloane keeps his arm around my shoulders, and I let myself lean on him for the whole walk back.
“Ready?” he asks when he opens my door.
“No,” I say, because I’m too tired to lie.
His mouth softens. “Okay.”
I climb into the truck anyway. Sloane closes the door, walks around to the driver’s side, and reaches for my hand only after he starts the engine.
This time, I let him take it. I’m not fixed, and the thought of going back makes my stomach clench, but Theo’s purr still lives against my throat, and Sloane’s thumb is moving slowly over my knuckles, and for the length of the drive, I can hold both truths without dropping either one.