10 #2
Evan released a slow breath and tipped his face toward the ceiling, personally offended by the effectiveness of that statement. “Well. That is deeply inconvenient.”
Blue stared at him. “Inconvenient?”
“Yes.” He folded his hands solemnly in his lap. “Because that is peak caveman-biker nonsense, and unfortunately…” He gestured between us. “Very effective.”
I snorted before I could stop myself.
“He went full alpha, didn’t he?” Evan continued, warming to the subject. “Mine. Protect. Build fire. Provide shelter. Stare down predators until they flee the territory.”
Blue huffed a laugh. “That is an unfortunately accurate description.”
“I hate that I’m into it. I hate that it makes sense.” He pressed his fingertips to his chest. “My lizard brain is standing and applauding.”
“It made sense to me too,” Blue admitted. “That’s what scares me.”
I leaned forward. “Because believing him doesn’t undo the damage.”
“No. And his revelation doesn’t get to rewrite my life.”
I looked around her apartment. Notes covered one side of the refrigerator. A throw lay folded over the couch, and a half-finished glass of water sat on the side table. Small evidence of a life being lived in real time. It wasn’t glamorous or easy, but it belonged to her.
“I believe he didn’t cheat,” Blue said. “I believe he wants the baby. I even believe he wants me.”
Evan watched her closely. “But?”
“I didn’t build this life as a placeholder.” Her voice steadied. “I’m not handing it over because he finally figured out what he refuses to lose.”
A slow smile pulled at my mouth, proud and heartsick at once.
What if Jackson woke and I still had no idea what our night had meant to him?
To me, it had been everything. I had loved him long before he touched me, and when he finally did, when he looked at me like I mattered, I believed it meant he felt the same.
Then he took me home and disappeared. No call or note. Nothing. For years, I hadn’t even known whether he was alive.
What happened if he opened his eyes now and I learned I had carried the ghost of him all this time for nothing? If I still didn’t know whether he had loved me or used me, how could I decide whether telling him about Jade was the right thing to do?
Blue continued, unaware that my thoughts had slipped sideways. “He wants me back at the club. He wants me there. Wants us there.”
“And you?” Evan asked.
She rested a hand over her stomach. “I like my life. I like my job, and I love you guys. The rules worked when my life was measured in hours and shifts. They don’t work now that it’s measured in futures.”
“Good,” Evan said.
“I’m not closing the door forever, but I’m not opening it because he knocked loudly.”
I reached for her hand. “Then you’re doing exactly what you should be doing.”
She squeezed my fingers, and some of the strain eased from her face. “He can want me. He just doesn’t get me without changing.”
Evan’s mouth curved. “Make him work.”
Blue smiled, tired but steady. “Oh, he will.”
For a moment, the room changed.
Nothing outside it had improved. Priest remained Priest. Jackson still lay in a hospital bed caught somewhere between darkness and waking.
My own life remained a knotted thing I could barely face without flinching.
Even so, Blue’s certainty settled over the three of us, a temporary shelter built from honesty, friendship, and the freedom to say the ugliest parts aloud.
We stayed there awhile longer, circling through smaller pieces while the tension loosened one thread at a time. Eventually, Blue queued up Heated Rivalry. Evan returned from raiding her kitchen for snacks to find the afternoon softened into hockey and terrible decision-making
It took him less than five minutes to become personally offended by the existence of hockey players.
“Why,” he demanded, clutching a container of yogurt to his chest, “is hockey this hot? Explain it to me. Actually, don’t. I already know. It’s the violence and the skating. It’s all those repressed feelings packed inside emotionally constipated men with excellent thighs.”
Blue snorted into her drink. “You say that like you’ve discovered something new.”
“It gets worse every time.” Evan dropped into the chair. “They’re out there bleeding attractively and body-checking each other as though therapy isn’t covered by insurance.”
I laughed and curled deeper into the couch.
He pointed toward the screen with a cracker. “That one right there. That man looks like he would ruin your life, apologize once, then somehow make you feel guilty for failing to appreciate the growth opportunity.”
“Evan,” Blue said, already laughing, “that isn’t a real person. He’s an actor playing a fictional hockey player.”
“That changes nothing. If anything, it makes him more dangerous.”
I shook my head. “You need help.”
“I have help.” He gestured between us. “Neither of you is using your gifts responsibly.”
Blue shifted against the cushions without taking her eyes from the screen. “Hockey is objectively one of the hotter sports.”
I turned toward her. “Objectively?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Fast-paced violence, endurance, strong legs, built-in knives on their feet. High pain tolerance. It’s basically catnip for people with poor boundaries.”
Evan slapped my knee. “Did you hear that? Built-in knives on their feet. Indigo Thorne, you dark little ER gremlin.”
Blue rolled her eyes. “I work in an emergency room. I watch men do stupid things with their bodies twelve hours at a time. I’m qualified to assess patterns.”
“That,” Evan said solemnly, “was the hottest thing anyone has said in this apartment today.”
Onscreen, the tension between the leads sharpened into the kind of charged silence that usually ended with someone making a terrible choice against a wall. Evan made a strangled sound into his yogurt.
“There,” he whispered. “That’s the look. The one right before somebody says something emotionally devastating and kisses the other man like he pays taxes on the privilege.”
Blue’s mouth twitched. “You say that like you disapprove.”
“I say it like I need a warning before tension this indecent.”
Another laugh escaped me, easier this time. Blue caught my eye over the rim of her mug and smiled, small but real, and for a moment the entire afternoon loosened around us.
Then Evan pointed at the screen with his cracker again. “That one is basically Priest with skates.”
Blue snorted. “Absolutely not.”
“He’s too pretty to be Priest,” I said, glancing up, “but the emotional repression is close.”
Evan looked delighted. “That is exactly what I mean.”
Blue muttered something about needing better coworkers, though she was smiling when she said it.
The episode rolled on while Evan maintained a running commentary filled with scandalized sighs and wildly unhelpful observations. Blue pretended to be above it while remaining just as invested as the rest of us.
I sat between them, listening to their nonsense and the comfort of voices I knew by heart, and finally let some of the tightness inside me ease.