“I hope it was worth it,” I said, smiling despite myself. “For all of us.”
He leaned back, chair creaking, and watched me in that way he had, like I was a puzzle he’d never get tired of working. “I’d do it again,” he said. “Twice.”
Rory stirred, a small whimper, then fell quiet as Sully touched the side of his head. “You know what the worst part is?” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I want them here, in this room, right now. Even if they’d wreck the soup and fill the air with bickering.”
He thought about it, then said, “It’d be too loud. I’d have to eat in the barn.”
I laughed, and Rory startled awake, eyes wide and milky blue in the lamplight. I lifted him, settling his weight against my chest. His fingers tangled in my hair, and he looked up with a seriousness that didn’t belong in a face so small.
Sully wiped his mouth and pushed away from the table, then came around and pressed his lips to the top of Rory’s head. “You’re the future,” he whispered, so soft I almost missed it. “Don’t let anyone take it from you.”
The evening drew down, and the fire made patterns on the walls, twisting the whole room into something safe and secret. I listened to the rhythm of Rory’s breath, the steady thud of Sully’s heart behind me, and for the first time in months, maybe years, I let myself believe we’d earned this. Not by grace, or luck, but by sheer bloody refusal to let go.
Sully started clearing the table, stacking bowls and mugs, humming a tune that might’ve been an old club anthem or a hymn from his first life—I could never tell. I watched him, watched the way his hands never shook, not anymore, the way he moved around the kitchen like he’d been born to it.
I wanted to say something, to fill the space with words, but I didn’t have any left.
So I just rocked Rory and let the world outside the window fade to blue.
***
Bedtime was a ritual, but not the holy kind—no saints, no smoke, just patience and repetition. The nursery was a box of old plaster and wood, whitewashed so clean you could believe nothing badever happened in the world. Sully had built the cradle himself, sanding it so smooth you could skate a coin down the length and never catch a splinter. I eased Rory into the crook of my elbow and hummed him a song my mother used to sing: “Seoithín, seo hó.” My voice was wrecked from crying and laughing and too many years of silence, but it steadied out for him, for both of us.
He blinked, and his fist caught the cord at my neck, yanking me in so close our noses bumped. I kissed his brow, let him taste the salt of my skin, and rocked him until his eyelids sank heavy. It was the only part of the day I felt calm, like nothing could get at us, not war or time or the ghosts in the fields beyond.
Sully stood in the doorway. He didn’t say a word, just leaned his shoulder to the jamb and watched us, eyes gone soft at the edges. The light behind him made his shadow loom long on the boards. Sometimes I wondered if he knew how easy it would be for me to love him, if I hadn’t done it already. He watched every move I made, as if he were memorizing it for some test that only he would ever care to take.
When Rory started to drift, I tucked him into the cradle and drew the blanket up to his chin. The lullaby wound down to just breath and the beat of my heart, and I turned to see Sully still there, not moving, still as a prayer.
“You could’ve come in,” I said.
He nodded, but stayed put. “Didn’t want to break the spell.”
I crossed to him, felt the shiver of air as I passed the candle on the sill. The flame bent, nearly guttered, then steadied again. Sully reached for me, stopped, then let his hands fall.
“You miss it?” he said. “The old life?”
“No.” I pressed my palm to his chest, the heat of him all through my bones. “It’s gone. This is all I need.”
We stood there, the nursery behind me, the world behind him. I didn’t look back. He didn’t, either.
I brushed my lips over the raw skin at his jaw.
He made a sound, low and rough, and I slid past him into the hallway, letting my fingers drag slow across his chest as I went. The invitation was clear as sunlight. He followed, silent as a ghost.
The bedroom was all shadow, the candle’s stub throwing wild shapes across the sloped roof. The air was damp from our breath and from the rain that had rolled in off the sea sometime after supper, pattering at the window with the slow persistence of regret. Sully didn’t move at first, just stood there, his chest rising and falling, the muscles in his jaw working like he was trying to chew through something unspoken.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, let him feel the weight of my attention. I pulled the pins from my hair, one by one, and let it fall down my back. He liked to see it loose. Liked to tangle his hands in it, tug gentle at the roots while I pretended to mind.
When he finally came to me, he knelt, which should’ve looked strange for a man like Sully O’Toole, but didn’t. He slid his hands up my calves, over my knees, and stopped just below my hem. The touch was careful, almost shy, and I felt the heat of it even through the cloth. His eyes were dark in the candlelight, rimmed in gold.
“Let me see you,” he said.
I took my time unlacing the bodice, each tug slow, deliberate, the way he always told me drove him insane. The laces caught, then slipped free, and I peeled back the linen, let my breasts fall into the air. Sully let out a breath that was more a growl than a sigh. He traced the scars on my belly, the stretch marks, the newness of the skin there. His lips found the hollow above my hip, and he lingered, his stubble rasping over the bone.