Page 89 of Nothing To Lose
The call ends, but I don’t move. I’m still holding the phone to my ear like I might wake up if I let it go. My whole body is buzzing, numb and electric at the same time. It doesn’t feel real. Like maybe I imagined it. Like maybe if I move, it’ll all disappear.
Across the room, Talon Valdin watches me with an expression I can’t quite place. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe it’s irritation. Maybe it’s resignation. Whatever it is, he gives me a nod that doesn’t feel like approval so much as defeat.
“Good luck, Mr. Casey,” he says, voice dry.
I don’t trust that he won’t keep trying to manipulate things from the shadows. But right now, I don’t care.
Right now, all I can think is,he’s coming home.
My thoughts race as I leave the office and hurry back to the apartment. I want to clean. I want to change clothes. I want to do something that makes me feel like I deserve him showing up again. Like if I can control anything about the moment, I can make it perfect.
But the second I’m inside, I know there’s no time. My heart is pounding. I stand in the center of the room and spin like I’ve lost something, like there should be something I’m supposed to do.
I look at the clutter on the counter. The shirt I left draped over the back of a chair. I think about changing clothes. About shaving. About doing something to feel worthy of the man that is going to walk through the door soon.
But I can’t focus. I can’t stop pacing. Every noise from the street makes me jump. A dog barking. Tires crunching gravel. Footsteps that don’t stop at my door.
I peek through the blinds for the third time in as many minutes. I check the clock. I swear it’s been an hour. It hasn’t. It’s been seven minutes.
Then I hear it.
A car.
I don’t think. I bolt down the stairs two at a time and fling the door open just as the car pulls up.
He steps out.
My hoodie is too big on him, the sleeves bunched in his fists. His hair’s a mess. His eyes are rimmed in red. And I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
I’m gone.
I’m already moving, already crossing the sidewalk and pulling him into my arms before he can say a word. I lift him straight off the ground, arms locked tight around his back, and realize somewhere in the back of my mind that he’s gasping for air.
“Shit,” I murmur, but I still can’t let go. “Sorry. Sorry. I just–I couldn’t–"
“I’m okay,” he breathes into my neck. “Don’t let go.”
“Never.”
I carry him up the stairs like he weighs nothing. His arms are locked around my shoulders, and my heart is thundering.
Back inside the apartment, I finally set him down, but I don’t step back. My hands stay on his shoulders, then drift down to his arms, his waist. I link our fingers like maybe I can anchor him here with me.
We don’t speak. Not right away. I study him like he might vanish. His face, his mouth, the way his chest rises with each breath. I brush my thumb over his wrist, over the soft space where his pulse is racing beneath the skin.
We breathe each other in, standing in the same place for the first time since everything changed.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, eyes shining. “I didn’t want to leave. I thought if I stayed, you’d go to prison. I thought I had to lose you to save you.” He pauses, swallows hard.
I glance down at my ankle. “Well… something worked.”
His eyes follow mine. “No monitor.”
“I’m free.”
He exhales hard again, softer this time. “Thank fuck. Because I googled it, and conjugal visits aren’t actually a thing.”
