8. Skylar
Skylar
The lobby of Emrys’s building smells like old carpet, lemon cleaner, rainwater tracked in from the street, and the faint trace of vanilla that has settled into the walls because he lives here.
I pause inside the front door long enough to listen before I move.
Pipes knock somewhere above me. A television murmurs behind a second-floor door.
The entry light buzzes overhead, and the narrow hall sits empty except for stained carpet, mailboxes, and a row of apartment doors that have all seen better paint.
Nothing shifts near the stairs. Nothing moves at the side entrance.
I check anyway, twice, because Emrys called me from his closet twenty-two minutes ago trying not to cry, and if this building wants to take that personally, it can get in line.
His door opens before I knock the second time.
Emrys stands there in an oversized gray hoodie with the sleeves pulled over his hands, curls flattened on one side and eyes red-rimmed from crying or lack of sleep or both.
The bruise along his cheek looks darker under the apartment lighting, and the relief that crosses his face when he sees me is so naked he drops his gaze before I can do anything with it.
“Hi,” he says, voice rough.
“Hi.” I keep one shoulder angled toward the hallway instead of stepping in too fast. “I was going to go over case notes anyway. It’s quieter here than the station, and your hallway has already annoyed me professionally, so this counts as efficient.”
He lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. His shoulders lower, and he steps back without having to ask me to stay because he’s scared. “Right. Case notes. That makes sense.”
“Deeply boring case notes,” I say, walking in only after he gives me the room to do it. “I brought a laptop and everything.”
His apartment is warm and softly lit, with books stacked on the coffee table, a cardigan over the arm of the couch, and folded blankets near the bedroom door.
The kitchen smells faintly of honey and cardamom beneath the sharper edge of fear.
Vanilla lives in the curtains, the couch, the blankets, and the air itself.
My own scent answers before I can stop it, amber and sandalwood lifting under my skin while I close the door and set my bag by the couch.
Emrys locks the door, checks the chain, and then tests the handle. He notices me watching and pulls his sleeves lower over his hands. “It’s excessive, I know.”
“After all you’ve been through, it’s understandable, Rys. It’s okay.”
He holds onto that tiny bit of normal for a second, then slips toward the kitchen. “Do you want tea? It won’t take that long to make.”
“Tea sounds good.”
He reaches for a mug without looking at me. “Plain, right? You seem like you take it plain.”
“I have a tea face?”
“You have a black-coffee face.” Color rises faintly under the edge of his bruise. “It felt like a safe guess.”
“Plain is right.”
He nods once, setting the kettle on the stove, and then just stares at it. I have to admire his attention. “Um, Skylar, you can sit. It’ll just be a few minutes. Is chamomile okay? I forgot to ask.”
“Rys, breathe. It’s fine. I’ll just be over at the couch, okay?”
Emrys manages a nod as I sit on the couch and open my laptop for a distraction. The moment the kettle starts whistling, Emrys jumps a little before rustling for tea bags and mugs. Then he brings the mug over and sits at the other end of the couch with his own tea close to his chest.
“You don’t have to pay attention to me or anything. I just... having you here...”
I glance over to see him curled up, shaking with his tea clutched in his hands.
Something pulls at me to drag him into my lap but I keep my hands to myself, returning my attention to my laptop.
A comfortable silence filters between us as his scent softens, mine winding around his until it’s just one, like it was supposed to be that way.
Pulling up the exterior footage notes with the call log, I draft a request for traffic cameras near West Talbot, and keep one eye on the hallway line in my peripheral vision.
Emrys watches the rain-dark window more than the laptop.
Every knock in the pipes pulls his attention to the door, but after ten minutes, his breathing starts to even out.
“Clarence has a dog named Biscuit,” he says suddenly.
I look over. “Clarence from the bakery?”
“Seventy-two, loud, thinks lemon loaves were bigger in 1998. Biscuit wears a bow tie and steals napkins when Clarence pretends he’s training him to be useful.
” His voice warms a little, careful at first, like he’s testing how I’m going to respond.
“Priya says the dog has more shame than Clarence, which is true, but not by much.”
“That sounds like an insult to Biscuit.”
“It is! Biscuit has done nothing to deserve Clarence slander.”
I keep my hands near the keyboard, but I’m not focused on the laptop anymore.
He tells me about the bakery at five in the morning, how it smells more like yeast and wet flour than sugar, how Priya’s first coffee could strip paint, how opening shifts let him be hands and routine before anyone expects him to be fully human.
He mentions Priya walking him the wrong way to the bus stop when she worries, adding blocks like he doesn’t notice she’s counting windows and parked cars.
The more he talks, the more I realize he’s just trying to fill the silence.
“Priya sounds good at being worried,” I say.
“She’s awful at being subtle.” Emrys looks down into his mug, mouth moving like a smile almost made it. “I’m not much better.”
“You’ve had a bad couple of days. Subtlety can take a break.”
He glances at me, and the faint blush comes back. “You make things sound so... reasonable.”
“They usually are. They just don’t feel that way while they’re happening.”
He sits with that and drinks his tea. The quiet afterward settles easier than the one I walked into.
I send Reyes the traffic camera request, mark one note for Miles, and keep the laptop angled enough that the glow doesn’t make the room feel like an interrogation.
Emrys yawns once and tries to hide it behind his sleeve.
My eyes move to the dark hallway toward his bedroom, something off about the blankets haphazardly crossing the threshold. I’ve never been in this apartment before tonight, but even I can tell the space is missing its center.
“You can rest,” I say. “I’ll stay for a while.”
His gaze follows mine, and embarrassment moves over his face. “I took it apart.”
I raise an eyebrow, trying to follow what’s going on in his head. “Rys, you don’t have to explain.”
“I know.” He sets his mug on the coffee table and keeps his hands tucked in his sleeves. “It smelled wrong after. Not bad. Just wrong. I tried to sleep there, and it felt too open, like it wanted me to be fine. So I pulled it apart and slept in the closet.”
He says it like he expects me to look at him differently. I close the laptop halfway, enough to soften the light between us. “That sounds like you found somewhere safe.”
His eyes lift to mine.
“Small isn’t wrong,” I tell him. “If the closet worked and the nest didn’t, then the closet was the right place.”
His mouth presses tight, as his eyes glaze over with tears. “I thought it was pathetic.”
“Rys,” I whisper. “There’s nothing pathetic about surviving.”
He nods once, looking down before the expression can break all the way through.
I open the laptop again because he needs somewhere else to put his eyes, and because I need the same thing.
“There’s a little I can tell you about the case,” I say.
“Only the parts that won’t put you in the middle of it. ”
He curls deeper into the couch corner, exhausted but listening. “Any little bit helps.”
“There’s a task-force thread that was already running before this. My partner is handling that side. The lead went cold, and I came here expecting the same-old, same-old I was used to. But in the past few days, I’m beginning to think this mysterious man isn’t just random.”
Emrys hums. “But why me?”
“I wish I knew and I don’t have enough evidence to answer that.” I start a ramble of my own, giving Emrys pieces of the case, while leaving out anything Kade mentioned and his possible connection to the man in the hoodie. To my own ears, it sounds more like conspiracy than investigation.
Emrys’ eyes lose focus halfway through the last word. He tips against the couch back, then catches himself with a small, embarrassed inhale. “Sorry. I’m listening.”
“You’re not,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Sleep, Emrys.”
He looks like he might argue, but the energy never reaches his mouth.
His eyes close. For a few minutes, he stays on his end of the couch, curled into the hoodie with his breathing shallow but steady.
I grab my tea and take a sip before returning my attention to my laptop, not really trusting myself to look at him too long.
Then he moves, his body shifting first toward the middle cushion, then farther, drawn by warmth and scent. His hand brushes my thigh, and every muscle in me locks up. He settles with his head against my leg, exhales once, the sound small enough to hurt.
Vanilla rises around us as my laptop screen dims while my hands hover uselessly above the keyboard.
I shut it with care, moving slowly enough not to jostle him.
For a moment, that is all it is. His head on my lap, one hand loose near my knee, his breathing evening out because some part of him has decided this is safe.
Then he shifts again. He moves closer in a slow, sleeping search for the right shape as I place the laptop off to the side.
His head slides from my lap to my stomach, his shoulder presses against my chest, and by the time he settles again, I have an armful of Omega curled against me with his cheek on my shirt and one hand caught in the fabric near my ribs.
I pause for several seconds, staring at the precious bundle in my arms before I give in, wrapping myself around him. The silence is broken by a soft buzz, my gaze dipping to the armrest.
Reyes name pops up.
Are you home and horizontal, or am I filing a missing-person report on your common sense?
I look down at Emrys asleep against me, his fingers still curled in my shirt.
Something like that, I type.
Reyes replies almost immediately.
That’s not an answer.
I glance at the laptop, the cooling tea, and the sleeping Omega tucked against me like he has known me longer than three days.
It’s the only one I’ve got right now.
I silence the phone and set it facedown. His vanilla scent settles warm against my throat, and Emrys breathes like he finally has somewhere to put himself. Strangely, it feels like I’ve finally found a place for myself too.