Chapter 219: Jake
Silence stretches, settles. Then I nod toward my phone. “We tell Cruz to come. Tomorrow we’re on the institute’s boat, but after that we pack and head back to Northhaven.”
Reid scrubs a hand over his face, thinking it through. “Sloane’s due the day after tomorrow, evening.”
“Good,” I say. “Gives us runway. We loop Charlie first—invite her over, just the three of us. We tell her we’re dating Mads so at least one other person knows where the center of gravity is.”
Reid’s mouth tips. “She’ll have our backs.”
“Then we deal with Sloane,” I go on. “Either she comes clean and tells us everything she’s got and where she got it… or she’s out of SWMRI. She’s not focused on the work, she’s chasing some petty revenge over Finn, and now she’s dragging it into dangerous territory.”
He nods once, clean and final.
“Only after all of that,” I add, looking down at the girl asleep on my chest, “do we sit Mads down and tell her. We tell her she’s safe, she doesn’t have to carry it, but we need the full story so we can put an end to it.”
Reid watches my hand where it rests on her. I slide my palm to her forearm and wrap around; my fingers meet, easy. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s real,” I admit. “She’s so… small.” My hand drifts over the curve of her hip, the line of her waist, reverent, careful not to wake her. “And somehow she’s all woman. Soft everywhere.”
I shake my head because it still knocks me sideways. “I don’t understand it—how perfect she is, how much of a magnet. And that’s just looking at her. Add how smart she is, and funny, and kind, and how she loves what she loves… it’s too much for one man to hold. No wonder the universe decided it takes two to give this woman everything she deserves.”
Reid’s eyes soften, the dark in him easing back a notch. “Yeah,” he says. “Two.”
I glance at the black window and feel something cold and clean settle into place. “I’ll never understand doing something this disgusting and drastic to her,” I say, meaning the stalker, the paper, all of it. “But I kind of get how the idea of losing her could drive a man insane.”
Reid’s gaze flicks to her, then back to me. “We won’t lose her.”
I agree, and tighten my arm around her, as if the vow could be a physical thing she sleeps inside.
“I feel bad,” I say after a while, thumb smoothing over the back of her hand. “That for a second I believed that paper.”
Reid exhales, long and low. “Don’t.”
“But you didn’t believe it for one second.”
He just shakes his head.
“How?”
He thinks about it, knuckles pressed to his mouth. “I’m not as… practical as you,” he says finally. “I lead with what I feel and break it down later—unless it’s boats or work. When I saw it, I didn’t even have an inkling it might be true. Maybe that makes me a naive fool, I don’t know.” His gaze slides to her. “But when it comes to Madeline, I’m hardly ever wrong.”
I nod, because he’s right. The words he said to me from that first fight over her flick back like a matchstrike—she never looks at you the way she looks at me. It was true then; it’s true now. She loves us both, but it’s different, a twin-star thing with two kinds of pull. Not more. Just… different.
We kill the light. The room goes soft and dark. Reid turns over on his bed, breath evening out; she melts heavier against me, palm tucked under my shirt at my ribs like she’s saving a place.
I don’t sleep.
I spend long minutes tracing her in the dark—mapping the line of her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the silk of her hair as it falls over my forearm. I find the curve of her mouth with my fingertip and feel the ghost of a smile even in sleep; I count the slow, warm breaths against my skin and set my own to match. I memorize her by touch, like I’m learning a language I’ll need without light.
I don’t know why the feeling builds in my chest, tight and quiet, but it does: keep her close. Closer than this. Or something bad will try to take what’s ours. I pull her in that last inch, arm banded around her, and stare into the dark until the thought turns from fear into a vow.
Middle of the night, something yanks me up out of sleep—the smallest tremor running through her, like a nightmare testing the door.
Not this time.
I fold my arms around her and roll, careful and sure, until she’s fully on top of me—head and hands on my chest, her whole light body stretched along mine. I hike the blanket higher over her shoulders and lock her in, one forearm across her back, the other palming the back of her head.
“No, no,” I murmur into her hair, voice rough with sleep. “Nothing can hurt you, babygirl. You’re safe. I got you. I got you.”
She startles, lifts her head to look at me—eyes unfocused, breathing fast. I press a gentle hand to her crown and guide her back down. “Shh. Nothing will ever touch you as long as I’m here,” I promise, letting the words land against her ear, against my skin. “I’ve got you.”
Her arms cinch around my ribs; she stays sprawled over me, cheek to my sternum, breaths slowly unspooling. A beat, then in that soft, sleep-blurred voice that undoes me:
“Jake?”
“Mm?”
“I love you.”
Everything in me goes tight for a second—frozen, braced—then her small fingers curl harder into my side, like she’s anchoring herself to the answer. I wrap her in both arms and hold on.
“I love you,” I tell her, easy and absolute, the words warming my throat as they leave. “I love you.”
Her body melts heavier into mine, the tremor gone. I keep my palm at the back of her head and breathe with her until our hearts match and the room is nothing but heat, blanket, and the quiet fact of her safe on my chest.