"You still here?" His voice was rough with sleep.
"Yeah." I traced my fingers along his arm, careful of the bandages. "Not going anywhere."
His fingers found my ribs, the lightest of touch over my bruises. It wasn't clinical anymore—not analyzing, only connecting. "Good."
I watched his face in the grey light filtering through the blinds. His usual sharp focus had softened into something more vulnerable. More real.
"We should probably eat something," he murmured, though he made no move to get up.
"Later." I pulled him closer, ignoring the protest in my ribs. His head settled under my chin, breath warm against my collarbone.
The pizza sat forgotten on the counter. Tom Waits had gone quiet hours ago. The rain continued its steady pattern against the glass.
Finally, completely home.
Epilogue - James
Alow, crackling riff spilled from the speakers, the unmistakable, cigarette-scorched voice of Chris Whitley threading through the quiet."Big Sky Country."It was a song meant for long roads and dark bars, but tonight, it drifted through the house, curling into the corners like smoke.
I sat at the dining table, red pen in hand, dissecting a stack of midterm essays ranging from brilliant to criminally incoherent. My mug—lukewarm coffee, too bitter, untouched for the last twenty minutes—rested near my elbow, leaving a faint ring on the wood.
Across the room, Marcus sprawled on the couch, reading over station reports, one hand resting on an open folder, the other idly scratching at the back of his head. His socks didn't match. I'd pointed that out earlier, and he'd grumbled about how they weren't supposed to.
The rich scent of something roasting filled the air—garlic, onions, and the deep umami of meat breaking down into tenderness. I should have checked on it, but Marcus had firmly told me to sit my ass down and stop fussing.
A year ago, we hadn't even lived together. A year ago, we'd been standing in the wreckage of what Elliot Raines had left behind, trying to remember how to breathe.
Now, the silence between us wasn't heavy. It wasn't loaded with things unsaid. It waseasy.
Marcus shifted, turning a page. The couch creaked, one of those small, familiar sounds I'd come to recognize, like the sound of his boots hitting the floor in the morning and the quiet way he sighed before falling asleep.
I stretched, setting my pen down. "You're frowning."
His head lifted. "You're grading."
I smirked. "Insightful."
He grunted, tapping the report in his lap. "You ever get papers that make you want to set your own damn desk on fire?"
"Oh, constantly." I leaned back, pressing my fingers into the knots at the base of my skull. "Half of these students want to use commas after every third word."
Marcus snorted. "That bad?"
"One kid somehow managed to use the wordallegedlyseven times in a single paragraph." I picked up the paper, reading aloud in my best imitation of a news anchor: "Serial arsonists allegedly display patterns of control, allegedly linked to personal trauma, allegedly dating back to childhood, allegedly—"
Marcus groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. "I don't know if I should be more worried that he's this bad at writing or that he's gonna grow up to be one of your case studies."
"Both," I muttered, setting the paper aside.
The song switched. A lazy slide guitar eased into the room, followed by the gravel of Tom Waits's"Long Way Home."
Marcus stretched, arching his back before tossing the folder onto the coffee table. "You hungry?"
I glanced toward the kitchen. "Dinner's not done yet."
"That wasn't the question."
I chuckled, pushing back from the table, feeling the weight of the day settle lower in my body. Outside, the rain had started again, a soft, irregular tapping against the windows. It wouldn't let up until morning.
