Chapter Twelve #2
I pace Henry’s living room, every step uneven, like the floor might give way beneath me.
My heart’s thudding too loud, too fast—each beat a jolt that runs down my spine.
My nerves are stretched tight, wound up like barbed wire under my skin, ready to snap.
Any minute now, a little boy—barely holding his life together—will walk through that front door, and I can't stop moving.
Like somehow, if I just keep going, I won’t fall apart.
Henry sits on the couch like he’s got time to waste.
Freshly showered, hair still damp and curling at the edges like it always does when he doesn’t bother to tame it.
He’s stretched out, legs wide, one arm draped casually over the back of the couch like he owns the place—which he does, of course—but it’s the ease that gets to me. That maddening, infuriating ease.
Like none of this cuts him open the way it does me.
Like he hasn’t lit a fuse between us and handed me the match.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. He just watches, those dark eyes steady, tracking every pass I make across the room like he’s clocking weather patterns—like he knows the storm’s coming and he’s already decided to let it hit.
I pretend not to notice. Pretend his gaze doesn’t crawl up my spine, doesn’t make my skin feel too tight for my bones. Pretend this house doesn’t hum with the history we never got to live.
I haven’t changed a single thing about myself.
Didn’t put on a nicer shirt. Didn’t soften my tone.
I’m not putting on a show for some caseworker who’ll size me up in thirty seconds flat and decide what I’m worth.
She’ll get me exactly as I am—sharp-tongued, short-tempered, and unapologetically real.
She can deal with it or shove her little clipboard up her ass and walk right back out the door.
But as I pace, that old ache rises again—deep and bitter. Because I remember another caseworker from when daddy died.
I was younger then, but the memory is sharp: her too-tight bun, the clipboard, the way she looked at us like we were broken glass she didn’t want to touch. Not kids. Not people. Just another line on a caseload.
Just another reminder that I wasn’t enough. The thought that this little boy might be walking in here already feeling like that—already bracing for more disappointment—makes my chest go tight, the way it does right before you cry or scream or run.
“You’re gonna wear a hole clean through my floor,” Henry’s voice drawls from the couch, thick as molasses and just as slow.
I spin on my heel and cross my arms, heat prickling across my chest. “And you’re just sitting there, calm as ever, like this is a God damn picnic in the park.”
He smirks, that lazy, crooked grin that makes me want to throw something—and kiss him in the same breath. “I’m too tired to be worked up,” he says, stretching like a cat. “And I only wish that anything involving you was as easy as a fucking picnic in the park.”
“Sheriff,” I drawl, eyes narrowing as I square up to him, “are you calling me difficult?”
“Fuck yes I am.”
His voice cuts through the room, blunt and unapologetic. Then he stands—just like that—and the whole atmosphere shifts. He closes the space between us in three slow, deliberate steps, and suddenly I feel the heat of him all over me.
Henry doesn’t just walk into a room—he claims it. Fills it up with that too-big presence, like the walls should bend to make room for him. Or maybe it’s just me he does that to—makes me feel small and seen all at once.
His tattooed forearms flex as he reaches for me, easy and entitled, like this moment is always his. He twirls a lock of my hair around his finger, slow and careful, like he’s got all damn day to unravel me.
The gentleness pisses me off more than if he’d grabbed me by the throat.
“What the hell are you doing?” My voice is sharp, but there's no bite—just breath. Barely.
He leans in just enough that I can feel the whisper of his breath against my cheek, and his voice dips into that gravelly, lethal place that always finds its way under my skin.
“Well, little viper,” he murmurs, “do you feel like you’re missing something?”
My hair slips from his fingers like silk, the slow release sending a shiver down my spine. His hand doesn’t stop—it drifts lower, tracing the line of my collarbone through my shirt, light as breath but hot like it’s burning into me.
My breath catches, and God help me, he hears it. Of course he does.
“Something,” he continues, voice all gravel and velvet, “that only I can provide?”
I stare at him, caught in the furnace of his gaze—hazel eyes burning like embers stirred too long. Then he bites his bottom lip. Barely. Just enough. And when his eyes drop to my mouth, it hits like a match to bone-dry kindling.
Just like that, my body betrays me. Comes alive the way it always does under his hands, his voice, his fucking presence. My skin tingles, blood rushes, and I can’t remember how to breathe properly.
He knows. The bastard knows. How could he not?
It’s in the way I lean in, involuntary and slow. The flush creeping up my neck. The way I blink too long, too slow, like I’m trying to shake off a spell I already let swallow me whole.
And he drinks it in—like it’s his favorite sin.
Then that wolfish grin creeps across his face, slow and satisfied, like he just watched the rabbit step one inch too close to the snare.
His eyes never leaving mine, he slips his hand into his pocket and pulls out a ring.
Holds it up between two fingers like it means nothing. Like it means everything.
“I don’t know what you thought I meant,” he says, voice soaked in amusement and edge, “but I was talking about this.”
My eyes drop to the ring, simple and silver, glinting like trouble in the dim light.
I narrow my eyes at him, jaw clenching. “Why the fuck do I need that?”
“Because,” he says, stepping in close, that infuriating grin still carved on his face, “you’re my fiancée.”
I shove my hand out, fast and impatient, hating that he’s still steering this ship. “Not for long. Now hurry up and put the bastard on before I throw it at your face.”
He chuckles—low, rough, knowing—and slides the ring onto my finger with a care that does something ugly to my stomach. Too gentle. Too intentional.
Even through the fury, something about it feels permanent.
The ring slides on my finger cool and snug–too fucking snug. Like it knows it has no fucking business being on there. The air between us thickens, charged and humming like something volatile is about to detonate.
Henry’s eyes find mine again, dark and storm-soaked. That quiet look—the kind he only gets when the weight of what we could be presses too hard on what we never were.
He’s not saying it. But it’s there.
I open my mouth, maybe to snap again, maybe to say something cruel just to push him back to a safer distance, but then—
Knock, knock.
The sound slices through the tension like a blade.
I flinch, just slightly, my eyes snapping to the door. Henry’s jaw ticks.
Neither of us moves right away.
“That’ll be them,” I mutter, my voice quieter than I expect it to be. “You ready?”
Henry meets my eyes, blinking slowly, like he's trying to process the weight of the moment.
He runs a hand across his face, rough fingers dragging through his hair, and for the first time, I see it—the nerves.
The real, raw nerves hiding behind his usual confidence and willingness to carry the weight of the world simply because he can.
His chest rises and falls in a way that betrays him, and for all his size and strength, he's small in this moment. Like he's just as afraid of what's on the other side of that door as I am.
I decided to cut the bleeding heart a break and reach for the doorknob. “Well, buck the fuck up, Sheriff, it’s showtime.”
I don’t wait. I throw the door open wide, a practiced, plastic smile already stitched across my face.
Because if I’m going to be someone else today, I might as well sell the hell out of it.