Chapter 10 Yara #2
I set my coffee cup down a little too hard and turn, expecting another rep, another insistent message, another small crisis.
It’s him.
Grau.
Standing here in the doorframe like he belongs, like he’s been invited. His coat — dark and heavy — drapes over one arm, and his eyes catch the soft morning light in a way that makes me forget to breathe.
He doesn’t step inside at once.
He doesn’t need to.
His presence fills the room before his boots even touch the floor.
“Morning,” he says, his voice still rough at the edges, like he hasn’t slept either.
I want to tell him no, that I don’t need distractions.
Instead I say, “Coffee’s in the mug warmer.”
He nods, like a man trained to take directions.
He steps in, and the air shifts — warmer, taut with something unspoken. My senses catch every detail: the slight scrape of his boots against tile, the subtle leather scent of his coat, the way his gaze drifts just a little too long over the space where I am.
I want to look away.
I don’t.
“Sit,” I say, motioning to the chair across the breakfast bar.
He pauses — like he’s not sure if I meant it — then sits, heavy-shouldered, entire presence anchored to that chair. Not looming. Not looming in a scary way. Just present.
The silence between us is not calm.
It is electric.
“Coffee?” I offer, then pour two cups — one dark, one with just a hint of cream.
He accepts without a word, fingers brushing the rim of the mug, skin warm and solid.
“Thanks,” he murmurs.
And there it is.
Casual. Normal. So ordinary it becomes intimate.
We sip in silence.
I taste grounds and pressure.
He tastes like warmth and distance.
“Last night — ” I begin.
He doesn’t look at me.
Instead he sets his mug down — careful, deliberate — eyes fixed on the window.
“Yeah,” he says, voice low, almost too even. “Last night.”
His restraint is palpable.
Not cold.
Just… measured.
Like he’s holding back something he shouldn’t.
“Are we okay?” I ask it softly, like I’m testing the surface of something fragile.
He doesn’t turn to look at me.
But his thumb traces the rim of his mug so slowly, so consciously, I can practically feel the tension in his skin.
“We’re fine,” he says.
But the words aren’t like last night.
They’re clipped. Guarded.
You’d think he was deflecting because he didn’t want intimacy.
That’s not it.
I know him well enough now to know: he’s deflecting because he’s afraid of how much he cares.
And that scares him.
It should scare me too.
“Work,” I say, hoping to ground us both. “Board meeting this afternoon. Tidball is… hopeful.”
He snorts — quiet, but unmistakable.
“‘Hopeful,’” he mocks under his breath.
I glance at him, eyebrows raised.
“What?” he asks, as though I’ve caught him in something he didn’t mean to admit.
“You sound amused,” I say.
He shrugs — the barest movement — but it’s enough.
“Hope is for people with vacations,” he says. “And weekends.”
I almost laugh.
But then Tidball’s face flashes behind my eyelids.
And the humor dissipates.
“It’s not a joke,” I say, a little sharper than I intended.
He turns his face toward me then — not fully, just the angle that lets me see his profile, jaw tense, eyes thoughtful.
“It is a joke,” he says, quiet but pointed. “A bad one.”
I don’t challenge him.
Not because I agree.
But because it’s true.
I feel the weariness in my bones.
The truth of how thin I’m holding everything together.
“Are you… okay?” I ask suddenly, surprising even myself.
He freezes — not like someone caught, but like someone who didn’t expect to be asked.
For a long moment he doesn’t answer.
Then he says, slowly, “I’m holding up.”
His voice is a carefully constructed fortress.
Sturdy.
Unmovable.
Unreachable.
“Grau,” I begin — then stop.
Because what?
I don’t know how to phrase it.
Because I want to know what he’s holding back?
Because it feels like there’s something beneath the surface — something dangerous and unfathomably deep — and he’s deliberately keeping it from me?
“Yes,” I say instead. “If you’re holding up, then that’s good.”
He stares into his coffee — black like voidlight — and I watch the way his shoulders tense under the weight of some unspoken burden. I can feel it like static on the skin.
And I realize:
I don’t know him as well as I think.
I thought I did.
But this — this careful restraint — is something else entirely.
Something he won’t let slip.
Not even to me.
Not even when his eyes darken at the edges, not even in the quiet way his jaw tightens when Tidball’s name crosses my lips.
He sits there, mug in hands, a man shaped by war and instinct, and the room feels too small for all the things left unsaid between us.
And I wonder — not for the first time — if loving a Reaper means always standing on the edge of catastrophe.
Because with him, I’m never sure where safety ends and danger begins.
He sets his coffee down — deliberately — like he’s setting a boundary.
“Yara,” he says, voice low, “I’m here.”
Not here here.
Not falling into me like last night.
Just… present.
Like a promise wrapped in restraint.
“I know,” I whisper.
But the words feel like a confession.
Because I do know.
I know that his presence is the one point of stability in my life right now.
More steady than contracts, more constant than crisis.
And yet…
Unsettlingly fragile.
“Thank you,” I say, even though it feels inadequate.
For what?
For being present?
For staying out of my office?
For not stepping in when I asked him to?
For pretending nothing has changed?
“Yes,” he says, but his gaze doesn’t lift to meet mine.
And I feel it — hanging between us, a tension thicker than any negotiation board:
He’s watching me.
Too closely.
Not because he doubts me.
But because he feels me.
And that makes me uneasy.
I stare out the window, past the mounting skyline, out where the world flickers between night and dawn.
And I wonder…
If loving a Reaper means never truly feeling anchored.
Just beautifully, terrifyingly tethered.
And maybe, that’s the point.
Because some ties aren’t meant to ground you.
They’re meant to change you.
Just as dawn breaks over Helios Combine — gold light melting into glass and steel — I realize that even stability can tremble.
Especially when it’s built on hearts that don’t know how to stop burning.