"Don't thank me." He's already climbing into the driver's seat, adjusting mirrors, checking gauges. Anything to avoid looking at me. "Just get dressed so we can go."
The hoodie smells like him. That scent that's been following me around for weeks now, lodged somewhere in my hindbrain where I can't shake it loose.
I pull it over my head. The fabric swallows me whole—Rex is at least a foot taller than me, broader in every dimension—but it's warm and dry and right now that's all that matters.
The sweats are even more ridiculous. I have to roll the waistband three times just to keep them from falling off my hips. But they're soft, and they're dry, and when I climb back into the front seat, I feel almost human again.
Rex doesn't say anything. Just puts the car in drive and pulls out of the cemetery parking lot.
The drive back to the penthouse is silent.
Not the hostile silence of our early days, when every interaction felt like a battlefield. Not the charged silence of the stone tower, when we were both too aware of each other and trying desperately not to show it.
This is something else. It sits between us like a third presence, taking up space neither of us knows how to fill.
I watch the city lights blur past the rain-streaked windows. Watch Rex's hands on the steering wheel, steady and sure despite everything that happened tonight.
He's not okay.
But he'shere.
He walked out of that cemetery. He let me drag him back to the car instead of sitting there until the rain finally won.
That has to count for something.
CHAPTER 12
BELLS
The elevator doors open and Phoenix is already there.
Not just waiting in the penthouse. He's in the fuckingelevator lobby, pacing like a caged animal, his blond mane disheveled and his eyes red-rimmed. The moment he sees us, his whole body sags with relief, then tenses again as he processes what he's looking at.
Rex, soaked and silent, giving off the kind of emptiness that feels deeply wrong.
And me, drowning in Rex's hoodie and sweats, my wet clothes balled up in a plastic bag.
Phoenix doesn't hesitate. He crosses the lobby in three massive strides and crashes into Rex like a golden retriever who's been left alone too long. His arms wrap around Rex's rigid frame, squeezing hard enough that I hear Rex's breath catch.
"You fuckingasshole." Phoenix's voice cracks on the word. "Your phone was off. We couldn't find you. I thought…"
He doesn't finish. Doesn't have to.
Rex stands there like a statue, his single visible eye staring at nothing over Phoenix's shoulder.
"I'm fine," Rex says, and the words are so flat they might as well be automated.
Phoenix pulls back just enough to look at him. His blue eyes are wet. Phoenix, who I've never seen cry, who holds everything together with golden retriever optimism… he's beencrying.
Over Rex.
"You're not fine," Phoenix says quietly. "But you're here. That's enough for now."
An emotion flashes across Rex's face. Gone too fast to name. Then he's extracting himself from Phoenix's grip, stepping back, rebuilding his walls in real-time.
That's when Phoenix turns to me.
"Bells."