Chapter 120
Summer's POV
Kieran walked in carrying a small paper bag and a drink carrier with three cups balanced precariously in his left hand, his right arm hanging loose at his side. He didn't see me at first, his gaze going straight to Lily, but then his eyes flicked up and landed on mine. He froze for half a second, something unreadable crossing his face—not surprise, because he'd known I was here, had bought the third drink for me—but something sharper that looked almost like panic as his gaze swept over my expression, reading whatever I was failing to hide.
The armor I now understood he'd been building for years, brick by brick, each layer added after another blow from a father who should have protected him instead of breaking him.
He set one cup down in front of Lily—hot chocolate with extra whipped cream—and placed the drink carrier on the table between us. The third cup was a caramel iced coffee, the kind with the caramel swirl mixed through the cream, condensation already beading on the plastic. My favorite. The one I'd ordered every single time we'd come here in my past life, back when I thought those little rituals meant something, back when I thought he might have been paying attention.
But now I knew. He had been paying attention. He always had been. And he was still paying attention even as he tried to push me away, even as he prepared to disappear from my life to keep me safe from the monster who'd stolen his childhood and left him with a hand that would never fully heal.
He pulled two small boxes from the paper bag and set them down with a soft clink, the clear plastic containers showing off glazed donuts topped with strawberry icing and little white sprinkles that caught the light. They weren't fancy—Dunkin' didn't do fancy—but they were exactly the kind of thing I used to get when I was stressed, when I needed something sweet and comforting and familiar.
The kind of thing he'd remembered even though he was pretending he didn't care, even though he was trying to make me believe this meant nothing.
"Finish your drink," he said to Lily, his voice flat. "Stop talking so much."
Lily's hand stilled on her cup, and I saw something flicker across her face—a shadow of the girl who'd just told me about blood on the floor and her brother's screams—before she nodded quickly and took another sip. She didn't bounce in her seat or chatter about her day the way she had before. She just sat there, smaller somehow, watching Kieran with those big brown eyes that had seen too much for a child her age.
She was putting on a mask for him. Pretending to be okay so he wouldn't worry. Just like he was pretending for me.
Then he turned to me, his gray eyes meeting mine for just a moment before sliding away. "They had extra," he said, nodding at the iced coffee and the donuts, his tone so carefully indifferent it made my chest ache. "Didn't want to waste it."
His hand brushed mine as he pushed the cup closer, just the barest touch of cold fingertips against the back of my hand, and I wanted to grab hold of him, to pull him into the seat next to me and tell him I knew—I knew about his father, I knew about the nights he'd spent in the hospital, I knew about the hand he'd sacrificed to keep Lily safe. I wanted to tell him he didn't have to run, that he didn't have to face this alone, that I would stand between him and every demon from his past if he'd just let me.
But he was already pulling back, his hand disappearing into his pocket, his shoulders tense with the weight of everything he was carrying by himself.
"I..." The words caught in my throat, thick and painful, because I could still hear Lily's voice in my head—There was blood everywhere—and I could see it now, in the careful way he held his right hand, in the way his jaw was clenched so tight it had to hurt. "I can't."
"Can't what?" Kieran asked, his voice sharp with suspicion, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me properly for the first time since he'd walked in.
"Eat right now," I managed, and my voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. My stomach was churning, acid burning at the back of my throat, because every time I looked at him I saw a fourteen-year-old boy with a shattered hand and a father who'd put it there. "I'm not... I don't feel well."
It wasn't a lie. The donut sat in its little plastic box, innocent and sweet, and I wanted to appreciate the gesture, wanted to be touched by the fact that he'd remembered what I liked even in the middle of everything he was dealing with. But all I could think about was whether he'd used the money from his tutoring sessions to buy it, whether every dollar he spent on me was a dollar he couldn't spend on Lily's hearing aids or their escape from this city, and the thought made me feel sick with guilt and grief.
"Then let it sit," he cut in, his tone leaving no room for argument, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder. "Drink it later. Whatever."