Chapter 14 #3
"And I frightened our daughter," I add, because that's the sentence underneath all the others. "Rosalie woke because my scent cut through the house before I could pull it back. Luca looked at me like his body had already reacted before either of us knew what to do with it."
"Yes," Maceo says again, and there's no comfort in the honesty, which is why it lands.
My jaw tightens. "You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to make you feel better by lying."
That lands harder than I expect. Maceo closes the last of the distance and reaches for my wrist. I look down at his hand before he touches me, and he waits until I let the contact happen. His fingers close around my wrist, firm and steady, thumb resting over the pulse that's still moving too fast.
"You can be held without it becoming a crisis," he says.
The words settle in the space between us.
I've got no immediate answer, which is rare enough to irritate me.
The folder's still on the table. My phone's still in the other room.
Victor's still outside this house with all his careful language and all his clean exits, but Maceo's hand is around my wrist, and the room doesn't collapse because I'm no longer moving toward the work.
"I don't need to be handled," I say at last, though the edge in it's got less force than I want.
"I know."
"I'm not falling apart."
"I know that too."
"Then stop looking at me like I am."
Maceo doesn't step back. He doesn't sharpen in response, and he doesn't give me the easy relief of a fight. His thumb stays over my pulse. "I'm looking at you like you're standing in the middle of the library with nowhere to put the weight," he says. "That's different."
I stare at him, caught between anger and the terrible relief of being understood too precisely.
When I take a seat, he sits beside me, closer this time.
His hand remains around my wrist, and for several breaths, neither of us moves.
Then his other hand comes to the back of my neck, and he draws me down with steady pressure.
My first instinct's to stay upright. It's not about trust. I trust Maceo with the things I'd never put into words for anyone else.
It's habit, older than this house, older than the version of my life where love's allowed to be this crowded and this real.
Some part of me still believes that if I bend, if my head lowers, if I let someone else carry even the visible edge of my exhaustion, the shape of the room'll change for the worse.
Maceo doesn't force me. He simply keeps his hand at the back of my neck and waits. Eventually, resistance becomes more tiring than surrender and I lean into him.
My forehead rests against his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt's cool against my skin, and his arm settles around my back with enough weight to make getting up feel like a decision instead of a reflex.
For a while, I remain rigid. My eyes stay open.
My breathing stays too controlled to be natural.
Maceo says nothing about any of it. His hand remains at my neck, thumb moving slowly near the base of my skull, and his breathing keeps a pace my body begins to follow despite itself.
Rosalie's whimper comes back to me in the quiet, and the memory makes my hand tighten around Maceo's wrist. "She woke because of me," I say, the words low against his shoulder.
"Luca looked at me like his body knew my anger before either of us could think.
I know why it happened. I know Victor pushed until something in me answered.
That doesn't make it easier to live with. "
Maceo's hand stays at the back of my neck.
He doesn't rush to forgive me on everyone else's behalf, which steadies me more than comfort would have.
When he answers, his voice is quiet enough that it doesn't disturb the room around us.
"You saw what your anger did, and you stepped away before it became something bigger.
That matters, Luther. It doesn't erase that it scared them. It means you cared enough to stop."
I close my eyes because the distinction hurts, and because some part of me needs it anyway. "I was afraid of what I'd do if I stayed."
"I know." Maceo's arm settles heavier around my back, making the idea of standing feel less like a solution and more like another way to run from the same thing. "That fear isn't proof that you're dangerous. It's proof that you're still paying attention."
The room blurs at the edges. I keep my hand around his wrist, feeling the slow pulse there, the steady evidence of him beside me.
For once, he doesn't ask me to turn the feeling into language.
He doesn't need a confession, a strategy, or a plan of correction.
He lets the silence hold what I can't make useful.
"I don't know how to be safe when I feel like this," I admit.
Maceo's quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Then don't do it alone."
I don't remember deciding to close my eyes. One moment I'm counting breaths against Maceo's shoulder, and the next the contract folder's only a pale shape on the table, no longer bright enough to command me.
The last thing I register is Maceo’s hand shifting over mine, his fingers settling there without trying to loosen my grip.
I have his wrist caught like I need proof he will stay, and if he notices the desperation in it, he does not name it.
He only adjusts enough to take my weight more comfortably, his shoulder solid beneath my temple, his breathing steady where mine has finally stopped fighting him.
The contract folder stays on the table. My phone stays in the other room.
The house moves quietly around us, distant enough that I can let it move without rising to meet every sound.
Maceo remains awake beside me, still and warm in the dim library, and this time when sleep pulls me under, I let his hand be the last thing I hold.