But watching her like this—
Small and alone on that couch, folding in on herself like she might disappear—something inside me gave.
I stood before thinking about it.
She didn’t seem to notice, too far inside it already. Her face buried in her hands, her knees drawn up, her whole body curling inward, and then I did the one thing I’d spent years refusing to do.
I touched her.
I slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back, and I lifted her gently, pulling her into me as I sat down on the couch with her in my lap.
She gasped as she grabbed onto my shirt instinctively, fisting the fabric.
“Callan—”
“Shhh,” I murmured.
I settled her against my chest, one arm around her shoulders, the other resting at her waist. Steady. Secure. Not going anywhere.
Her body was rigid at first, as if she didn’t understand what was happening, as if she was waiting for me to pull away or explain or take it back.
I didn’t.
All at once she collapsed into me, her face pressed into the space between my neck and shoulder. Her fingers curled tighter into my shirt. Her whole body shuddered against mine, crying—hard, ugly, the kind of grief that comes from somewhere deep and doesn’t care what it looks like to the outside world.
“Cry,” I said quietly. “Grieve. Let it out.”
It came out rougher than I meant it to.
But I meant it all the same.
Her sobs shook through both of us, her tears soaking through my collar, her breath ragged and uneven against my skin. Every few seconds her body would tense, like shewas trying to pull herself together, and another wave would hit and she’d break apart again.
I held her tighter; it was torture.
Because she fit. She fit against me in a way that I had no right to notice but couldn’t ignore. Her head tucked beneath my chin, hand flat against my chest, the warmth of her through the thin fabric of her shirt where my arm rested at her waist.
She trusted me. Right now she trusted me, and that was the part that hit the hardest. Not the closeness, but the trust. She had placed herself in my hands, she was letting me see her at her worst because she believed I wouldn’t use it against her.
Me.
The man who had given her every reason to believe the exact opposite. The truth—the thing I had buried for years under criticism and distance and carefully maintained hostility—was simple and terrible but undeniable.
I hadn’t pushed her away because I didn’t care, but because I cared too much.
Every time she walked into a room, I noticed. Every time she argued with me, stood her ground, refused to back down, I admired it. Every time she looked at me with frustration, or anger, or quiet hurt, I wondered what it would be like if she looked at me without any of that and simply looked at me as a man.
I’d kept her at arm’s length because the alternative terrified me.
And now she was here.
In my arms, the world outside more than likely gone.
I rested my chin against the top of her head and closed myeyes.
I was already losing the fight to pretend I didn’t want this.
* * *