Chapter 17
Hayden
I am naked in the kitchen, assembling charcuterie.
It’s a ridiculous sight, really. Me, barefoot on cold tile, slicing the good cheese with the focus of a man who’s spent his existence preparing bodies for funerals.
But instead of satin-lined caskets and death certificates, I’m folding prosciutto into tidy curls and placing them beside dried apricots for a man who just made my shadows purr.
Which is…insane.
I don’t do this. Snacks after a shower. Letting someone care for me. Melting under warm water and soft fingers.
He washed my hair.
That shouldn’t undo me, but it does. Not the physicality of it, not even the intimacy of being touched.
But the intention. The care. The way his fingers moved through my hair like it was something gentle.
Like I was something worth tending to. Being held together is easy. Being held is work that I’m attempting.
And now I’m preparing a dairy-heavy snack in the buff because that’s the logical next step when someone touches you like that. Because I don’t know how else to thank him. Gratitude feels new on me. I’m better at dignities than thank-yous.
The tray is absurd…cheese, olives, forgotten fig jam. I uncork a bottle of red, then carry everything back to the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. He’s lying there, propped up on one elbow, sheets tangled low around his waist, eyes soft and sleepy. He blinks at me…and the tray balanced in my hands.
Levi grins. “You brought a cheese board…naked?”
I set the tray on the mattress. “Would you prefer pants?”
His eyes rake over me and then settle somewhere south of polite. “Not even a little.”
I pour the wine and pass him a glass. We sit in silence for a few moments, our thighs barely touching. The intimacy isn’t gone. It’s just softer now. He nibbles on a cracker and glances at me over the rim of his glass.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
I nod. Then pause. “Mostly. But how did you know I needed that? The shower. The…” I gesture vaguely toward the hallway, like the intimacy we just shared is beyond reach.
Levi shrugs. “I don’t know. I just…saw you. You looked like you were holding yourself together by sheer force of will.”
“I was.”
He smiles. “You needed someone to take care of you. So, I did.”
I study him. “But how did you know?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always been the one to read the room. My parents are emotionally allergic to discomfort, so I became the buffer. The one who kept things together.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was,” he says simply. “But it’s also who I am, I guess. I’ve gotten good at noticing the cracks before they split open.”
“And what am I in that metaphor?”
He laughs, shaking his head aggressively. “Oh, you’re a locked room. And I’m just grateful you let me in.”
Locked rooms still want keys.
I’m not used to this. To being witnessed for the parts I usually keep buried.
We eat in silence, passing bites back and forth like a ritual neither of us acknowledges out loud.
I catch myself watching how he avoids the blue cheese as if it’s offended him, how he exhales softly when he finds the dried cherries.
“The flowers,” I say, “they were lovely. Perfect, actually.”
Levi’s cheeks flush from the sudden compliment.
“I don’t think I ever really…I don’t know how to explain it. But they felt right. Like you knew exactly what was needed. And you gave it to them.”
His throat works around a swallow. “I wanted them to feel like they belonged there. Like they were supposed to be part of it all. For them…and for you.”
I nod. “They did. Thank you.”
He looks at me like my gratitude is more intimate than anything else we’ve done tonight.
And it might be.
Maybe that’s why I don’t flinch when he asks, “Is it always this…heavy?”
He doesn’t need to clarify; I know what he means. The weight of holding everyone’s grief in my hands like it won’t shatter me if I’m not careful. I lean back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling, pretending it might have a simpler answer.
“Sometimes,” I say eventually. “But recently? More.”
Levi’s quiet for a moment. Then, “Why?”
My gaze finds his. There’s no point in deflecting.
“You, obviously.”
He blinks, caught off guard. I see the question in his eyes before he asks it. “Me?”
“It’s easier when you’re detached,” I say. “When people come and go and you don’t let yourself care too much. That’s how it’s always been for me, at least. I watch them live, grieve, move on, and I stay exactly where I am.”
I shake my head, looking down at our tangled legs under the comforter. “But you’re not passing through. You’re…here. Rooted. And quite stubborn about it, too.”
He laughs, but I don’t. Not yet.
“I don’t know how to ignore that,” I finish.
He sets aside his glass, threading our fingers together. “Have you ever let yourself feel this way before?”
I snort quietly, the sound more breath than voice. “Once.”
Levi shifts, propping himself up. “Go on.”
The memories hit all at once. The warmth of another sun, another century. The sting of something I thought I could keep.
“His name was Perseus.”
Levi’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait…the Perseus? Slayed Medusa, flew a horse, hero of legend?”
I snort. “No. Just…a Perseus. Common name back then. Overused, frankly.”
He tries to smile, but it sticks halfway. “And what was he to you?”
“He was kind,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
“Radiantly kind. Too much light in one person. I thought I could survive on distance, that loving him quietly from afar would be enough. But it wasn’t.
Not for him. Not for me. He wanted more…
and I didn’t know how to give it. So, he left, as he should have.
And that’s how I learned what mortals crave, and what gods were never taught. ”
“And now?” he asks quietly. “Does it still feel like that? Or does it feel different with me?”
I look at him, and everything in my heart softens. Not because I’m less afraid.
But because he’s worth the fear.
“Partially,” I admit. “But with you, I’m more worried about getting it wrong again.”
He cups my jaw, thumb grazing the corner of my mouth. “You’re not.” His voice is steady, certain in ways I can’t bring myself to be. “And you don’t have to be scared by yourself.”
I want to believe him. Gods, I do.
But belief is a finicky thing for someone who’s spent eternity surviving without it.
I pull him tighter against me, my lips at his temple.
“That’s enough existential introspection for one evening, don’t you think?
” Levi laughs, the sound vibrating straight into my chest, burrowing, the reminder that I am not alone, not this time.
Something to hold on to when the silence returns. “Or…we can dissect your former flames?”
“Talk about a pivot, Funeral Guy,” he says with a laugh, burying his head in my neck. “You realize we sound like a couple doing post-therapy pillow talk, right?”
I glance at him sideways. “You are the one who engineered nudity and ate all my cheese.”
He smirks. “To be fair, I only meant to do one of those things.”
I arch a brow. “And which one was that?”
He just grins, chin now resting on my chest. He’s so close I can count the freckles across his nose one by one and I hate how easily it disarms me.
“Lately, there was this one guy,” he starts, tracing his fingers through my chest hair. “Ezra. He’s a good guy. Owns the supply store in town and we’ve known each other our whole lives, it feels like. It wasn’t serious. Not really. But it was…comfortable.”
The name tastes unfamiliar on my tongue, and it leaves a faint ache under my ribs I can’t quite move past. “Were you…together?”
“Not officially. Certainly not publicly.” Levi pauses, reaching for his wineglass and rolling the stem between his fingers. “We were just casually filling the silence for each other. I kept expecting to feel more. He kept pretending not to notice that I didn’t.”
“Did you ever love him?”
He shakes his head immediately and the tightness in my chest loosens a bit. “I wanted to. But I think I was just grateful that someone saw me and didn’t ask for more than I could give.”
Something about that cuts deeper than I expect.
“How long ago?” I ask, surprised by the tightness in my voice.
He shrugs again. “A while. We still see each other out and about sometimes…but not like that. He stopped by today, actually.”
My jaw tightens. “For?”
“To drop off lemon bars. And to ask about dinner.” Levi holds my gaze. “I told him I was seeing someone. That it was new, but it mattered.”
I say nothing, though my shadows shift slightly along the wall, belying the calm I pretend to carry. The ache under my ribs loosens. Not all endings bruise.
We lapse into quiet again, picking at the tray. My appetite hasn’t caught up with my emotions, but I pop a grape into my mouth just to keep my hands busy.
“I don’t want casual anymore,” Levi says, quiet but certain. “I want this. You.”
The words undo me more than any kiss could.
I stare at him for a long while. At the line of his collarbone, the curve of his mouth, the way his eyes soften like he’s not afraid of being seen.
“I’m not sure I know the protocol,” I admit.
“I’d say you’re doing just fine,” he murmurs into my chest. “We’ll figure it out.”
The wine sits half finished, the cheese forgotten, and we lie back against the pillows, fingers laced, shadows dancing idly along the ceiling above us as if they’ve finally settled, too.