8. Shay #3
“It does now.”
“No.” The word is sharper than I mean it to be. “It works because you made it work.”
His gaze locks on mine, and I immediately regret letting something sincere out of its cage. My whole face feels hot. I have to recalibrate. “Your margins are still a mess, though.”
That gets a real laugh out of him, low and warm. “Thank God,” he says. “I was worried you’d gone soft on me.”
“Never.”
The song ends. The needle hisses in the groove. Somewhere in the walls, a pipe knocks.
“What about you?” Declan asks, his voice quiet.
My whole body goes tight. “What about me?”
“You don’t have to answer.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t push. He just sits there beside me, close enough that the heat from his arm is a solid presence in the air. The exits are obvious. The apartment door, the stairs, down through the bar. I know exactly where they are. I just haven’t looked at them once since I sat down.
I glance at the apartment door anyway, just to prove I can.
“My mom used to keep a bag packed,” I say. The words fall out of my mouth and land in the quiet space between us.
Declan turns his head slowly. I keep my eyes on the record player.
“A duffel bag,” I say, watching the label spin.
“By the front door. For when the current guy decided we were too much work. She only dated alphas. Some were nice at first. Some weren’t.
But even the nice ones always got this look, eventually.
Like we were an inconvenience they’d accidentally brought home. ”
“Shay.” I hate the way my name sounds when he says it like that, soft and full of something I don’t want to name.
“She called it help,” I say, and the word tastes like acid. “They were always helping. With rent, with groceries. A place to stay. And eventually, they’d let you know what that help cost.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. If he says he’s sorry, I might actually throw something.
“When I offer you something,” he says finally, his voice low and careful, “and it ever feels like that, you tell me.”
My laugh comes out thin, brittle. “What, so you can workshop your manipulation strategy?”
“No.” His jaw is a hard line. “So I can stop.”
He means it. The sincerity is a weight in the room, aimed right at me, and that’s the entire problem.
My head drifts toward his shoulder. I catch it, but not before I’m close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin.
His pulse beats a steady, infuriating rhythm in the side of his neck.
It would be so easy to close that last inch.
To bite. Not a claiming mark, just a warning.
Or maybe exactly that. To just take something for once, without asking permission or tallying up the cost.
A muscle clenches deep in my gut, a useless, involuntary response. An engine turning over with nowhere to go.
This is the trap.
I’m on my feet before the thought is finished. The cushion sighs as it expands to fill the space where I was. Declan just watches me, his expression calm. Not surprised. He was waiting for me to bolt.
“It’s late,” I announce to the room. “And that couch is a fire hazard. You’re too big for it, you’ll fold in half. I’ll take it.”
He just looks at me. “Shay.”
“It’s my fee,” I add, pointing a finger at him. “For the audit. You can’t argue with an invoice.”
A ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “You take the bed. I’ll sleep out here.”
There it is again. The simple, uncomplicated offer. It should be a relief, but it feels like a dare. Sleeping alone in his bed while he’s folded up on that piece of junk out here—that feels like running. And I’m tired of being the guy who can’t handle one night of someone being decent to him.
“It’s a big bed,” I say. The words sound unnervingly casual.
Declan goes still. He just watches my face for a second, his own unreadable. He doesn’t grin, doesn’t make a joke. He just lets the offer hang there.
“Okay,” he says.
The bedroom is quiet, lit only by a lamp on the nightstand.
I know this room now, too. The grey sheets, the solid headboard, the small window that looks out over the alley.
I drop my bag, kick off my shoes, and get under the covers still in his Henley.
I can hear him in the bathroom—the water running, the soft sound of a drawer opening and closing.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand and I slap the screen dark without looking.
He comes out wearing a grey T-shirt and sweatpants. He looks like a person, not a variable, and it makes my stomach tighten. He gets into bed slowly, deliberately, leaving a yard of cool sheet between us. It feels like a canyon.
I lie on my back, staring at a crack in the ceiling and running the data.
He hasn’t touched me. He hasn’t asked if I’m okay. He hasn’t asked for a single damn thing.
His breathing deepens, evening out into the slow rhythm of sleep. The warmth radiating from his body crosses the empty space between us. It’s just physics. Simple heat transfer. Not safety.
I could get up right now. I could walk out.
I listen to him breathe in, and out.
And just like that, I’m gone.