46. Zyran #2
This is the most peaceful I’ve felt in days, maybe even longer, and I can slowly feel it wash over me.
“Okay but,” Esperr starts, leaning forward to grab her lemonade, “when he shows up at her door in the rain?—”
“Such a classic,” Cyran drawls.
“Maybe a little too much. I mean it’s manipulative. You can’t just show up in the rain and expect that to fix everything.”
“It’s romantic.”
“It’s a weather pattern,” she mutters, setting her drink back down.
I pressed my lips together, not commenting on the fact that I showed up at her apartment in the middle of a snowstorm so I could get stuck with her.
“You’re the least romantic person I’ve ever met,” Cyran states. He smiles while he says it, and the slight smile is Cyran's version of actually laughing.
“I’m practical,” Esperr mutters.
“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”
“In movies they are.” She gestures at the screen. “In movies being practical means you’re the boring friend who gives sensible advice and never gets the guy.”
“You got the guy,” I once again blurted out.
She pauses and then leans her head back until she’s staring at me upside down.
“I got the guy who drank coffee he hated for a year and some change because he has a crush and who stalked me,” she whispers in the last part, “that’s different.”
“How is that different?” I ask, raising a brow.
“It’s more unhinged… which I guess somehow works better for me.” She winks at me, blowing me a kiss and then sits back up.
“She’s not wrong,” Cyran butts in.
“Thank you, Cyran.” Esperr laughs.
“You’re welcome.”
I roll my eyes and go back to finishing the braid before I tie it off. Leaning back against the couch, I look at the two of them, realizing how right this feels, all of it, and I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips.
Esperr stands up, easing to the left of me on the couch, curling up in the corner before putting her feet in my lap. I grab her ankle and start massaging her calf just as Raiden appears in the doorway. Glancing over at him, he looks at me, hands shoved into his pockets.
“Can I grab you for a second?” He asks.
I squeeze Esperr’s ankle and lean over, capturing her lips in mine. “I’ll be right back,” I mutter against her lips before climbing to my feet.
Cyran is already leaning toward her. “Okay so explain to me why you think the rain scene doesn’t work?—”
“Because it’s emotionally manipulative?—”
Their voices fade as I follow Raiden through the kitchen and out to the back porch. It’s enclosed, just the way Slater built it, with glass on the tree side with the mountain view stretching out beyond it and the cold sitting just outside the panels.
Raiden pulls the door shut behind us, and we stand there for a second before he awkwardly shifts around and sits down in one of the chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking out at the mountains.
I swallow, gather my big boy pants, and sit across from him.
“Last night,” he starts.
“Raiden—”
“Let me say it.” He turns and looks at me. “What you said, about getting shot, that’s not something you should’ve been carrying alone. Any of it.” Raiden holds my gaze as he speaks.
“I know,” I mumble.
“Do you? Because it seems like you’ve been sitting on that for over a year and none of us knew.”
I look at the mountains through the glass, unable to look at him or say anything for that matter.
From the corner of my eye, Raiden drags a hand through his dark hair and leans back in the chair, looking at the ceiling for a second like he’s trying to find the right words and not finding them easily. Which from Raiden means whatever comes next is hard for him.
“I owe you an apology.”
My head snaps to him.
“After everything went down, after I got back.” He shakes his head, jaw ticking.
“I was so wrapped up in my own head, in Sybil, and in trying to put myself back together that I didn’t stop to look at you.
” He meets my eyes. “And I should’ve. You were the one on that floor; you were the one who watched it happen and couldn’t do anything and I just—” he stops, taking a breath.
“I came home and moved forward, and I never once asked if you were okay.”
“Raiden—”
“I’m not done.” He growls, leaning forward again.
“I know I’m not our father, I know that.
But sometimes I catch myself doing what he did—acting like being strong means not needing anything, not showing anything, just pushing through.
” He looks down at his hands, knuckles cracking.
“And I think somewhere along the way I expected that from you too without ever saying it out loud. Like you were just supposed to be fine because that’s what we do. ”
The porch becomes quiet, and I shift in my seat uncomfortably.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he suddenly says.
“Getting shot, me getting taken. None of it was your fault, Zyran.” Raiden looks at me again, eyes burning into me.
“I’m the one who pushed to go in. I made that call and I put all of us in that building.
Whatever happened after that is on me. Not you–never you. My fault, mine.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat and look at him sitting there across from me.
Raiden, the brother I’ve argued with my entire life, who I’ve bled beside, and who has never once in all of it said something he didn’t mean.
And I feel something in my chest that has been locked up for over a year just—release, like I can finally take a full breath.
“I blamed you last night,” I mutter, shame hitting me. “I… I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You were scared,” he says, shrugging. “And you were right that I didn’t back you the same way you backed me with Sybil. And for that I’m so sorry.”
We sat there, and I thought about the fourteen months of carrying something that was never mine, carrying it alone, and all it took was a woman I loved and a kitchen argument to finally accept it.
“You’re a grown man,” Raiden says after a few.
“You can make your own decisions. And she’s your decision.
So if you say she’s worth it, then she is.
I will back you in whatever you decide to do; if that means hiding here until it goes away or hunting the fucker down, then I’m there, every step of the way. ”
Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry.
I can feel my eyes water, and I know if I speak, they’ll pour, so all I do is nod my head.
“She’s good, I can see that. And I’m sorry it took me this long to say it.”
I blink and bite down on my lip before I muster the strength to say, “Yeah, she’s… she’s it for me.”
And that’s all it takes—Raiden nods his head, and while some may think it’s permission, and fuck, it might be, it’s enough to know that he has my back when I find Michael and kill him.