Page 21 of Beyond Reason

But that expression was all him.

“I can make my own breakfast,” I grumbled. It didn’t stop me from trailing across the room and letting myself collapse into one of the kitchen chairs. Yeah, I could make my own breakfast, but it didn’t mean I was going to turn down bacon when it was right under my nose.

Or the coffee that he slid across the table before he turned back to make our plates.

My eyes flicked down to the cup, and the corner of my mouth twisted into a half smile.

Creamy, probably a little too much sugar. Exactly how I’d taken it when Xavier was alive.

I drank my coffee black now—but I didn’t say a word as I brought the cup to my lips and took a sip.

“You can’t remember half your life, but you remember how I take my coffee, huh?”

“It’s the little things, right?” He smiled at me over his shoulder, all charm and intention. Xavier could be sweet when he wanted, but every move he made also had purpose and point. “It’s funny. The longer I’m here, the more little bits and pieces come back. I’m never going to be a whole person until I can see the full picture, so…” He slid a plate in front of me and sat down at the chair to my left.

He’d used to always sit at my right.

“So you want me to remind you how I like my coffee?”

“When I started cooking this morning, I remembered. I think the more I’m around you, the more it will come back. Maybe you don’t have to remind me.” He paused and ran his finger around the rim of his coffee cup. “Maybe you just need to be here so I can remind myself.”

The thought terrified me more than I wanted to let on, more than he needed to know. Right now, it seemed like he was remembering the good things—the moments when we’d woken up like this, the way he used to kiss me. He was remembering those first few months before he’d really let his guard down, and I’d shown him that I had just as much of a temper as he did.

He wasn’t remembering what happened that last night before he left, or the things we’d said to each other.

My eyes flicked the length of his body—to every injury he’d taken that night staring me in the face… every bullet hole.

And the knife wound…

I…

“Maybe some of it is better off in the past.” I kept my eyes on the food in front of me, though my appetite wasn’t there. Funny how easy it could go when I thought about him back out in the world doing the same thing that had gotten him killed the first time. But it didn’t have to be that way anymore, right? He didn’t have to be that person. “You have a chance at a whole new life, Xavier. Shouldn’t you be more focused on that?”

I didn’t have to look up to feel his stare, or to guess that it wasn’t as sweet as the coffee still lingering on my tongue.

“No. I want to know who I was. I want to be who I was. I want to feel capable enough that if something happens… again… I can keep myself safe. I don’t think I’m going to get a third chance to come back and be me.”

To come back.

God, maybe I wasn’t over thinking this had to be a dream, because the whole prospect of reincarnation sounded so…

“Don’t say it’s impossible.” Xavier cut my thoughts off, and I had to force myself not to smile. It had been like this before—we’d been like this before.

I couldn’t fall into thinking it could be that way again.

But something he said sparked a thought; there was a way I could keep him distracted, and it would give me a sense of peace, too. I knew I couldn’t keep him trapped in my house forever, as much as I wanted to. I couldn’t keep him behind these four walls, so what happened before never had a chance to happen again.

But there was no way I was going to let him out with how soft he looked, how fragile. The lean muscle that used to sculpt his body was nowhere to be seen. He looked like someone who had been in the hospital for months.

Maybe he would never be as tall as he was, but he could be just as strong. We could make him just as strong.

“I can’t give you back everything, but we can at least work on making sure you can take care of yourself.”

He stared at me, suspicion clear on his face. Maybe it was because I was giving in to his request too easily. Maybe he could hear the slightly eager tone in my voice.

“I could still kill you right now if I wanted to, Axel. You know that, right?”

I looked him up and down. I’d always known before that he was the more dangerous of the two of us. I’d rarely won a fight we had, real or sparring.

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