Page 66 of Stolen Harmony

But even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. I wasn't fine. Hadn't been fine for two years, maybe longer. The sex, the drinking, the careful distance I kept from anything that might require actual emotion, it was all just elaborate theater designed to convince myself I was still functional.

Elias studied me with those blue-gray eyes that seemed to see too much. “Are you?”

The answer was no, obviously no, had been no for so long I'd forgotten what fine felt like. But admitting that would mean admitting that I needed help, needed him, needed something I couldn't name and couldn't afford to want.

“I don't need a babysitter,” I said instead, moving to the couch and dropping into it hard. The cushions wheezed under my weight, springs protesting years of abuse. “I'm a grown man who can make his own choices.”

“Even when those choices are destroying you?”

The words cut deeper than they had any right to. I tipped my head back against the couch, staring at the water-stained ceiling as if it might provide answers to questions I was afraid to ask.

“What do you want from me, Elias?” The exhaustion in myvoice surprised me. When had I gotten so tired? “You want me to be someone I'm not? Want me to pretend I'm not fucked up beyond repair?”

He moved from the kitchen to the chair across from me, settling into it with the careful movements of someone who was trying not to spook a wild animal. His coat was still buttoned up to his throat, like he wasn't sure if he was staying or going.

“I want you to want help,” he said simply.

“Help.” I rolled the word around on my tongue like it was foreign. “From you.”

“From someone. Anyone. Fuck, Rowan, you're drinking yourself to death and using strangers like medication that isn't working.”

The brutal honesty of it made me flinch. Because he was right, wasn't he? The endless parade of men, the bottles of whiskey, the careful numbness I'd cultivated like a garden, none of it was working. If anything, it was making everything worse.

“You think I don't know what I'm doing to myself?” The question came out raw, scraping against my throat like sandpaper.

“I think you know exactly what you're doing. That's what scares me.”

He was scared for me. About me. The knowledge settled in my chest like a weight, warm and terrifying at the same time.

“Why do you care?” I asked, and the vulnerability in my voice made me want to take the words back immediately.

“Because she would have cared.” His voice was quiet, careful. “Because you're her son, and she loved you more than anything in the world.”

“But she's dead.” The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. “She's been dead for two years, and caring about me isn't going to bring her back.”

“No,” he agreed. “It's not.”

“So why?” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, trying to read his expression in the dim light of the apartment. “Why do you give a shit what happens to me?”

For a moment, he didn't answer. Just sat there looking at me with an expression I couldn't decipher, something that might have been pain or want or both.

“I don't know,” he said finally, and the honesty of it hit harder than any lie would have.

The silence stretched between us, thick enough to drown in. Outside, I could hear the sounds of Harbor's End settling into evening: cars passing on the street below, the distant cry of seagulls, the ever-present whisper of wind off the ocean.

Inside, there was only the sound of our breathing and the electric tension that seemed to fill every inch of space between us.

“You were watching,” I said suddenly, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.

Elias went very still. “What?”

“Earlier. When I was...” I gestured vaguely toward the bedroom. “You were watching.”

The flush that crept up his neck told me everything I needed to know. He'd been there, in my doorway, watching me with another man. The knowledge should have made me angry, should have felt like a violation. Instead, it sent heat pooling low in my belly, dangerous and unwelcome.

“I wasn't...” he started, then stopped. “The door was open.”

“That's not a denial.”