He swept the perimeter. First the alley, then the side lot, then around to the front. Slowly, methodically. His boots crunched over loose gravel as he rounded the side of the building, heart beating with the steady rhythm of readiness.
Nothing.
No busted sensors. No disturbed wiring. No strange footprints in the dirt. The air was heavy but still.
Too still.
He made it back to the alley just as a night-shift delivery truck rolled past two streets over, the faint rumble a reminder that the world was still turning. Still normal.
But he didn’t feel normal.
He felt like something had brushed just close enough to poke the edges of his instincts, then slipped away.
Which meant it could happen again.
Bennett exhaled slowly, the tension in his chest refusing to let go. He headed back to the apartment, his eyes sweeping once more over the surrounding rooftops, shadows, the fence line—anything that didn’t belong.
The only thing out of place was him. For letting himself get distracted by a woman he was already too far gone for.
After a quick knock on her door, and an “It’s me”, he pressed his palm against the apartment door after and waited just long enough for the lock to click open from the other side.
Laurel’s face appeared, her eyes wide with something that might’ve been concern or just a reflection of his own mood.
“You okay?” she asked, stepping back to let him in.
“Clear perimeter,” he said as he entered, scanning the space on reflex. “No signs of tampering. No footprints. No damage.”
She didn’t ask the next question, but he could feel it hovering in the air between them.
“I didn’t hear the first alert,” he admitted, jaw flexing. “Too distracted.”
Her expression softened, but she didn’t say,Yeah, because we were all over each other on the couch, even though that truth hung between them like an echo.
“You’re allowed to be human, Bennett.”
“Not when it comes to you.”
She blinked, no doubt caught off guard by the fierceness in his voice.
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “My job is to keep you safe. That alert could’ve been something real. And I was too busy…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to. The images were still fresh in his mind.
“You were here. With me,” Laurel said, crossing to him. “You didn’t abandon your post. You didn’t ignore a call. You didn’t even take a full breath before you were up and checking.”
He wanted to believe her. God, he did. But guilt was a tricky son-of-a-bitch, especially when paired with everything he’d lost before now.
She stepped closer and slid her hands up his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his T-shirt.
“You still feel responsible, even when you’ve done nothing wrong. That’s not about me, is it?”
He stared down at her, silent.
It wasn’t about her. Not entirely.
It was about Theo. About his father. About years of carrying the weight of someone else’s choices—and the fallout that followed.
But before he could dig too deep into that hole, Laurel leaned in, pressing her forehead against his chest.
“Maybe it was a glitch,” she murmured. “Maybe it wasn’t. But you handled it. That’s what matters.”
