Page 38 of Deacon

She rested a hand over her stomach. “I like my life. I like my job, and I love you guys. The rules worked when my life was measured in hours and shifts. They don’t work now that it’s measured in futures.”

“Good,” Evan said.

“I’m not closing the door forever, but I’m not opening it because he knocked loudly.”

I reached for her hand. “Then you’re doing exactly what you should be doing.”

She squeezed my fingers, and some of the strain eased from her face. “He can want me. He just doesn’t get me without changing.”

Evan’s mouth curved. “Make him work.”

Blue smiled, tired but steady. “Oh, he will.”

For a moment, the room changed.

Nothing outside it had improved. Priest remained Priest. Jackson still lay in a hospital bed caught somewhere between darkness and waking. My own life remained a knotted thing I could barely face without flinching. Even so, Blue’s certainty settled over the three of us, a temporary shelter built from honesty, friendship, and the freedom to say the ugliest parts aloud.

We stayed there awhile longer, circling through smaller pieces while the tension loosened one thread at a time. Eventually, Blue queued up Heated Rivalry. Evan returned from raiding her kitchen for snacks to find the afternoon softened into hockey and terrible decision-making

It took him less than five minutes to become personally offended by the existence of hockey players.

“Why,” he demanded, clutching a container of yogurt to his chest, “is hockey this hot? Explain it to me. Actually, don’t. I already know. It’s the violence and the skating. It’s all those repressed feelings packed inside emotionally constipated men with excellent thighs.”

Blue snorted into her drink. “You say that like you’ve discovered something new.”

“It gets worse every time.” Evan dropped into the chair. “They’re out there bleeding attractively and body-checking each other as though therapy isn’t covered by insurance.”

I laughed and curled deeper into the couch.

He pointed toward the screen with a cracker. “That one right there. That man looks like he would ruin your life, apologize once, then somehow make you feel guilty for failing to appreciate the growth opportunity.”

“Evan,” Blue said, already laughing, “that isn’t a real person. He’s an actor playing a fictional hockey player.”

“That changes nothing. If anything, it makes him more dangerous.”

I shook my head. “You need help.”

“I have help.” He gestured between us. “Neither of you is using your gifts responsibly.”

Blue shifted against the cushions without taking her eyes from the screen. “Hockey is objectively one of the hotter sports.”

I turned toward her. “Objectively?”

She lifted one shoulder. “Fast-paced violence, endurance, strong legs, built-in knives on their feet. High pain tolerance. It’s basically catnip for people with poor boundaries.”

Evan slapped my knee. “Did you hear that? Built-in knives on their feet. Indigo Thorne, you dark little ER gremlin.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “I work in an emergency room. I watch men do stupid things with their bodies twelve hours at a time. I’m qualified to assess patterns.”

“That,” Evan said solemnly, “was the hottest thing anyone has said in this apartment today.”

Onscreen, the tension between the leads sharpened into the kind of charged silence that usually ended with someone making a terrible choice against a wall. Evan made a strangled sound into his yogurt.

“There,” he whispered. “That’s the look. The one right before somebody says something emotionally devastating and kisses the other man like he pays taxes on the privilege.”

Blue’s mouth twitched. “You say that like you disapprove.”

“I say it like I need a warning before tension this indecent.”