CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Figured I'd find you out here." Thane's voice, low, careful, and when I turn he's already crossing the gravel toward me, jacket collar turned up against the cold, hands shoved in his pockets in the same deliberate way he's kept them since the doorway two nights ago.
"Needed air. The party's a lot." I wrap my arms tighter around myself, more for something to do with my hands than for warmth, though the cold has started working its way properly into my bones by now.
"It usually is, this time of year. Everybody's restless before winter really sets in.
" He stops a few feet away, close enough to talk without raising his voice, far enough that the careful distance between us holds, same as it's held every single time we've been alone since I got back.
"You okay? Dax's joke, I saw your face when he said it. "
"I'm fine. Ravinia handled it better than I would have, honestly." I study him for a moment, the cold air sharpening something in my chest that the noise inside kept blurred. "She talked to me after. Told me she's not interested in fighting over something that was never really hers to keep."
Something moves across his expression, complicated, more than I expect from a simple piece of information. "That sounds like her. She's better at grace than either of us probably deserve right now."
"She also told me she needs time. To figure out what happens next, for her charter and for herself." I watch him carefully, gauging how much of this he already knew, how much is landing new. "I don't think that's a small thing to ask, Thane. I think it's the least anyone in this could ask for."
"I know." Quiet, weighted. "I've known that since before you got back, if I'm honest. I just haven't figured out how to actually do right by everyone at once. Her. The charter. You. My own father's ghost still running half my decisions even four years after I took the gavel."
The admission surprises me, more raw than anything he's offered since I walked back into that garage bay, and I find myself asking the question I've been circling since Gilda's kitchen last night, the one he stopped himself from finishing at the table.
"Gilda told me the truth about the chair," I say, watching him carefully. "That you never gave an order. That it stayed empty because nobody could bring themselves to fill it, not because anyone thought I'd actually come back."
"She told you that." Not a question, more an acknowledgment, something resigned in it.
"She also told me you've never looked at anyone the way you used to look at me." My voice comes out steadier than I feel, three years of careful distance cracking open with every word. "Not once. Not even now."
He's quiet for a long moment, jaw working like he's deciding something, breath fogging visibly in the cold between us, and when he finally speaks his voice has lost the careful, measured quality it's held since I got back, replaced by something rawer, more exposed.
"She's not wrong." He closes half the distance between us, close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to keep looking at him, close enough that the cold air between us feels charged in a way it hasn't all week.
"I told myself for three years it was about respect.
For your dad. For Everhart's memory. That giving that chair away would feel like admitting something I wasn't ready to admit.
" He exhales, unsteady, the words coming faster now, like something dammed up too long finally breaking loose.
"The truth is simpler and a lot more pathetic than that.
I couldn't give it away because some part of me never stopped waiting for you to walk back through that door and sit in it again.
Three years, Niamh. I built an entire life around a club that needed stability, and I still kept one chair empty like some kind of shrine, because apparently I never actually let you leave, not really, not in any way that mattered. "
The confession lands somewhere unguarded in my chest, cracking something open that three years of careful management never fully sealed shut, and for a moment I can't find any words at all, just stand there in the cold, breath fogging, staring at a man who just handed me the one truth I didn't let myself hope for on the entire drive here.
"I didn't come back for that," I say finally, though it comes out less certain than I intend it to. "I came back because my father almost died."
"I know." He doesn't step back, doesn't retreat into the careful distance he's maintained since the doorway.
"I'm not saying you owe me anything for it.
I'm saying you asked, and I'm done lying to you about the shape of the last three years, even if the timing's a mess, even if I've got an engagement I haven't figured out how to properly end and a charter that's counting on me to hold a peace I'm not sure I actually want anymore. "
The wind picks up off the water, cold and sharp, carrying the distant sound of the party still going inside, muffled and far away, like it's happening in a different world than the one we're standing in right now.
I search his face for the calculation I keep expecting to find, some angle, some easier explanation that would let me protect myself from the weight of what he just said, and I don't find one, which frightens me more than any lie could have.
"What happens now," I ask, quieter, the question carrying more inside it than the four words strictly hold.
"I don't know." Honest, unflinching, closer to admitting uncertainty than I've ever heard him get.
"I know I'm not going to pretend anymore that this is simple, or that I've got it handled, or that you being back here doesn't change everything I thought I'd already made peace with.
Beyond that, I don't have a clean answer for you, Niamh. I wish I did."
We stand there together in the cold for a long moment, neither of us moving to close the last few feet between us, neither of us retreating either, the whole weight of three years and one unfinished engagement and a chair that never stopped waiting settling into the space between our bodies like something almost physical.
"I should go back inside," I say finally, though I don't move to do it, some part of me reluctant to be the one who breaks whatever fragile, dangerous thing is happening out here in the dark.
"Yeah." He doesn't move either. "Probably should."
Neither of us goes anywhere for another long moment, both of us caught in the specific gravity of finally having said something true, his eyes steady on mine in a way that makes the cold air feel almost beside the point, and I'm aware, with a clarity that startles me, of exactly how little effort it would take to close the distance he's kept so carefully in place since the doorway two nights ago.
I don't do it. Some old, stubborn instinct holds me back, the same one that's kept me safe and alone for three years, and I watch him notice the hesitation, watch something like understanding settle into his face instead of disappointment.
"Whatever you need," he says quietly, "however long you need to figure out what any of this means. I'm not going to push you into deciding faster than you're ready to. I've done enough deciding for both of us already, the last three years. Your turn, this time."
It's such a careful, deliberate kind of patience that it undoes something in me more thoroughly than urgency ever could have, and I find myself studying his face in the dim light spilling from the clubhouse windows, memorizing it in a way I haven't let myself do since I got back, the new lines at the corners of his eyes, the steadiness that's replaced whatever recklessness he had at twenty three.
It's only the sound of the side door opening again, another burst of warm light and noise spilling briefly into the cold, Gunnar's voice calling something about the last of the food getting cold, that finally breaks whatever spell has settled over the gravel lot, both of us stepping back half a pace at exactly the same moment, like two people caught doing something they aren't quite ready to name.
"Coming," Thane calls back, not taking his eyes off me until the last possible second, and then he's turning toward the door, leaving me standing alone in the cold with my pulse loud in my ears and an honesty between us that I have no idea, yet, what to do with.