Page 10 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter seven

Matthew

T he soft thump of footsteps pulled me from sleep. Dorian was pacing again, a restless silhouette near the window. He wore jeans and a fresh Pike Place Market t-shirt that he'd found in my clean laundry. His hair was damp, darker than usual.

The apartment smelled different. The lingering antiseptic scents from his bandages had faded. In its place, I smelled soap and shampoo from the shower.

I remained tucked into my chair. The pacing wasn't a sign of Dorian panicking. It was more like the movements of an animal not used to containment.

I sat up slowly, making enough noise to announce myself without startling him. He didn't flinch, but his shoulders shifted—a tiny adjustment that told me he'd been tracking my breathing long before I'd opened my eyes.

"Morning."

He stopped. "Did I wake you?"

"Nah. I'm usually up around now anyway." It was a lie, but a gentle one. I decided to make a change from our recent tea habit. "Coffee?"

"Yeah. That would be good."

I moved to the kitchen deliberately, giving Dorian space to follow or retreat as he chose. The coffee maker was ancient—a drip machine I'd inherited from Michael when he upgraded. It had survived three years of my irregular EMT schedule and still produced something resembling actual coffee.

I measured grounds, filled the reservoir, and listened to the machine rumble to life.

The simple actions required enough attention to quiet the noise in my head.

I'd learned to appreciate the small ceremonies of everyday life during the months after Afghanistan, when I could only sleep in fits and starts.

Miles calls them tiny rituals.

Dorian stopped his pacing and sat. The couch's leather creaked as he settled in.

While the coffee brewed, I opened the refrigerator and stared at its contents. I was out of bacon, but I had a half-empty carton of eggs and bread that was still good for another day or two. Nothing impressive, but I could put together another simple breakfast.

Dorian called from the couch. "You don't have to cook for me."

"I'm cooking for myself. You just happen to be here."

I cracked eggs into a bowl, whisking them with more attention than necessary. The coffee maker gave a final gurgle and fell silent. I poured two mugs—both black.

When I turned around, Dorian was watching me. I couldn't read his expression.

I set his mug on the coffee table and returned to the eggs, scrambling them. The butter hissed and popped, filling the apartment with the smell of something simple and real.

I kept talking while I cooked. "Three brothers, and not one can scramble eggs without making them bounce, but they'll still tell you I'm the underachiever."

Dorian lifted his coffee, inhaling the steam before taking a tentative sip. "Three brothers?"

"Yes, Marcus is the oldest. Steady as a metronome and organized to the point of pathology.

He's got emergency binders for everything, color-coded tabs—natural disasters, power outages, and the zombie apocalypse.

Plus, he's got a bug-out cabin in the mountains stocked like he’s prepping for nuclear winter. "

I divided the eggs between two plates, adding toast I'd forgotten was in the toaster until the smell of browning bread cut through everything else. Carrying the plates to the living room, I set one within Dorian's easy reach.

"Michael comes next. Ex-SWAT, all instinct and controlled violence.

He never met a problem that didn't look like a locked door he could kick down.

He still calls at least twice a week, even after moving south to Oregon with Alex.

I think the quiet drives him crazy." I settled into my chair, cutting into my eggs with the side of my fork.

Dorian took a small bite, chewing slowly. "And the third?"

"Miles. Baby of the family, but don't let that fool you. He's a crisis counselor with a psych degree and the kind of charm that could talk a bank robber into writing thank-you notes."

I paused, watching Dorian's face for any sign that the family talk made him uncomfortable. Instead, he leaned in to catch every word. "He's the one who remembers everyone's birthday and somehow always knows the right thing to say when everything goes to hell."

Dorian rubbed his chin. "That's a lot of firepower for a dinner table."

We reached for our mugs at the same moment. Our fingers collided, skin against skin, warm and deliberate.

His knuckles rested against my wrist. For a heartbeat, we stayed like that. We both had a strange reluctance to break whatever was building between us.

It wasn't fireworks. It was gravity—steady and sure—pulling us into each other's orbit, whether we were ready or not.

Dorian shifted his hand away a second later, fingers retreating to curl around his mug's handle. His eyes flicked toward the window—quick and automatic—constantly scanning for threats.

"You might like them, you know." I fed myself another forkful of the eggs. "My family. They're loud, nosy, and impossible to impress, but they mean well."

"I've never been great with family dinners. Too many knives in the silverware drawer."

The comment landed like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through the comfortable quiet we'd built. He didn't mean harm, but underneath the casual tone, I heard something else. He'd wrapped his truth in dark humor because saying it straight would cut too deep.

I took another bite of eggs, chewing slowly while I chose my words. "Fair enough. Though Ma McCabe's more likely to weaponize guilt than cutlery. Way more effective."

That comment earned a slight smile. It showed me that whatever walls Dorian had built around himself weren't impenetrable. There was enough room to plant a seed and trust that time and patience might help it grow.

"About yesterday morning," Dorian said, his voice quieter than before.

I looked at him, and he held my gaze for half a second—long enough to feel the memory of the kiss hover between us—before shaking his head. "Never mind."

I hid my smile behind another forkful of eggs. He didn't need to finish the sentence. That he'd almost said something was its own kind of progress.

He stood abruptly, leaving his plate half-finished. "Bathroom?"

"You know where it is."

He disappeared down the short hallway, and I heard the soft click of the door closing behind him.

The apartment felt different without his restless energy filling it—not empty, but quieter in a way that made me notice the absence of things I'd been unconsciously tracking, like the sound of his breathing.

I stared at the two coffee mugs sitting side by side on the table.

Mine, ceramic and chipped along the rim from too many mornings and not enough care.

His was the good one with the Fire Department logo.

I usually saved it for visitors who never came.

They sat, mismatched but somehow right, like they'd been waiting for each other all along.

Somewhere in the quiet, I'd started thinking about Dorian and me as an us.

Three days ago, he'd been a John Doe bleeding in the wreckage of someone else's violence.

Now, I pictured him at Ma's dining room table, probably charming her into feeding him thirds while Miles cracked jokes and Marcus asked his thoughtful questions.

The image came so easily it startled me—not because it felt wrong, but because it didn't.

I'd spent years keeping people at arm's length, perfecting the art of being helpful without becoming attached.

Some called it professional distance. It was the ability to care for people without carrying them home with you, an essential skill for anyone who made a living pulling strangers from wreckage.

With Dorian, that distance had collapsed before I'd noticed it happening.

I'd held plenty of broken people, but now, I wasn't just helping—I was choosing. I'd decided to create space for someone after the saving was over.

The bathroom door opened, and Dorian emerged looking slightly more composed. His hair was wet from the sink—he'd splashed water on his face. When he looked at me, something had changed.

"Feel better?" I asked.

"Getting there." He paused beside the couch. "Eight months since I ran from Hoyle's network. Less than a week since the bullet on the freeway should've ended all of this. Thank you. For changing the story."

I wanted to tell him he didn't need to thank me for basic decency. Sharing breakfast wasn't charity, nor was the quiet company of someone who understood that healing happened in fragments, not dramatic revelations.

"Yeah," I said simply. "Anytime."