I drive to the bar with the windows down and Vaughn's text warm in my hand. The bite mark on my shoulder aches under my chef's jacket in a way that feels like proof. Proof that somewhere outside Gordon's kitchen, someone thinks I'm worthsomething. That I'm not nothing. That I am more than the sum of what one man gave me.
Chapter 10
Vaughn
Robin left at 4:45 this morning. I know because I was awake, pretending not to be, listening to him try not to wake me.
He kissed my temple. Whisperedworklike an apology. Slipped out of bed so carefully you'd think I was made of something breakable, and I lay there with my eyes closed and his pillow against my chest and the vanilla-sugar smell of him fading from the sheets, and I let him go because he needed to go and because holding on too tight is the fastest way to make Robin run.
Downstairs, Ash is waiting.
Not in an ambush way — in a leaning-against-the-counter-with-two-coffees way. He's dressed. Boots on. Keys in hand. The particular readiness of a man who's been awake since before the sun and has already run out of things to do in his own house.
"Range?" he says. One word. Like he's offering me the weather.
I stop in the kitchen doorway. Yesterday's clothes, bite mark barely hidden by my collar, hair loose because Robin's bathroom didn't have a spare tie. I look exactly like a man who spent the night with his little brother, and Ash Martinez is offering me a trip to the shooting range.
"Is this some scary older brother thing? Because I spent the night with Robin and now you're taking me somewhere with guns?"
Ash laughs. A real one — short, sharp, the kind that sounds rusty from disuse. "Vaughn. Of all the men I know my brother has had sex with, you're the only one I don't completely despise."
"That's... touching."
"I'm going to the range because I go to the range. I'm inviting you because you're standing in my kitchen and we can get breakfast burritos on the way." He holds out one of the coffees. "You in?"
I take the coffee. "Yeah. I'm in."
The burrito place is a truck parked in a gas station lot off the highway. The kind of place you'd never find unless someone showed you — hand-painted sign, no menu, the woman behind the counter knows Ash by name.
"Dos de asada, Maria. And whatever he wants."
"Same," I say, because Ash has better taste in food than anyone except his brother.
We eat at a picnic bench around the side, bikes ticking as they cool. The burritos are enormous and perfect — crispy tortilla, tender beef, a green salsa that clears your sinuses. Ash eats his in about four bites. Military efficiency. I take my time.
Ash wipes his hands on a napkin. "Robin's happier than I've seen him in a long time. That's you."
"That's not just me."
"It's mostly you." He squints against the morning light. "He's been performing happy for years. This is different. The humming. The baking. The fact that he talks about you when he doesn't realize he's doing it." He pauses. "His boss noticed too."
I looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"Robin came home last week singing. Actual singing, in the kitchen, making something with chocolate. I haven't heard him sing since he was a teenager." Ash turns the coffee cup in his hands. "Next morning he left for work at four and came back at six looking like someone scraped him hollow. Wouldn't talk about it. Made dinner, smiled, went to bed early."
"Gordon."
"Gordon." Ash's voice goes flat. "Robin won't tell you how bad it is. He'll tell you it's fine, it's the industry, it's normal. It's not."
"I know it's not."
"You know some of it. You don't know all of it." He doesn't elaborate. Doesn't have to — the way he says it tells me Ash has been watching this longer than I have, has been cataloging the same data points, has been waiting for someone else to see what he sees. "Our mother stayed with our father for twenty years. He screamed. He cheated. He made her feel like she couldn't survive without him. They were honestly terrible to each other, but he watched her be broken down. And she stayed because she believed our dad."
I set down my burrito. "You think Robin's doing the same thing."
"I think Robin learned from the best. Perform fine. Endure the bad. Tell yourself it's normal because admitting it's not means admitting you chose to stay." Ash looks at me. "He's not going to tell you. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. Don't push him on it — he'll shut down completely. But don't stop watching either."
"I never stopped."