Page 138 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“I’m not—” He clears his throat. “I’m not really hungry. Or thirsty.”

“Neither am I.”

But I go to the kitchen anyway, needing something to do with my hands. The coffee maker sits next to Hank’s favorite mug—black ceramic with “World’s Okayest Operator” printed in faded white letters. A joke gift from last Christmas that he used every morning.

I reach for a different mug. Two different mugs. The mathematics of grief playing out in coffee cups and empty chairs.

Gabe wanders into the living room, then out again. Restless energy with nowhere to go. He picks up Hank’s book and sets it down. Touches the remote, pulls his hand back like it burned him.

“Maybe I should stay in my room,” he says suddenly. “For a while. Until?—”

“Until, what?”

“Until it doesn’t feel like we’re betraying him just by being in the same space.”

The coffee maker gurgles to life, filling the silence. Steam rises from the carafe, carrying the scent of the dark roast Hank preferred. Another ghost to add to the collection.

“He’s not here, Gabe.”

“Isn’t he?” He gestures around the kitchen. “His fingerprints are on every surface. His voice echoes in every room. Hell, I can still smell his cologne on the couch cushions.”

I can too. Sandalwood and cedar, faint but persistent. Like he just stepped out for a run and might come back any minute, sweaty and grinning.

“So what do we do? Burn everything? Pretend he never existed?”

“I don’t know.” Gabe slumps against the counter, exhaustion written in every line of his body. “I just know that every time I look at you, I see him too. And every time I think about—” He stops, shakes his head.

“About, what?”

“About touching you. About kissing you. About anything that used to feel natural.” His voice drops to barely audible. “It feels like cheating.”

The words hit like a sucker-punch of reality. Because I feel it too—the wrongness that settles over us whenever we get too close. The way his hand pulls back when he reaches for me. The careful distance we maintain on the couch, on opposite sides of a space that used to hold three bodies in easy intimacy.

“We can’t live like roommates,” I say finally.

“Can’t we?” He looks up, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion and grief. “Maybe that’s what we are now. Maybe the other thing—the us thing—only worked because he was the bridge between us.”

The coffee finishes brewing with a final hiss. I pour two cups, add cream to mine, and leave his black the way he likes it. The way he’s always liked it, since before Hank and me, since the early days when they were just partners learning to trust each other with their lives.

“You don’t believe that.”

“Don’t I?” He takes the coffee but doesn’t drink it, just holds it like a prop. “Think about it. When do we work best together? When he’s there to translate between us. When do we fight? When it’s just us trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing.”

“That’s not?—”

“The first time we had sex, all three of us, remember? You were terrified, but Hank made it okay. He made everything okay.” Gabe’s voice cracks. “What happens when there’s no one to make it okay anymore?”

I set down my coffee mug with shaking hands because he’s voicing the fear that’s been growing in my chest since we walked through the front door. The fear that, without Hank’s steady presence, Gabe and I will discover we’re just two broken people who don’t actually fit together.

“So we give up? We let his death destroy what he helped create?”

“Maybe what he helped create was always dependent on him being here to maintain it.”

The words hang between us like smoke from an explosion. Heavy. Toxic. Impossible to take back once they’re spoken.

I walk to the living room, sink onto the couch where we used to pile together for movie nights. The cushions still hold the impression of Hank’s body, a shallow dent where he always sat. I curl into that space, breathing in the lingering scent of him.

“I miss him so much it feels like dying,” I whisper.