Page 157 of Priest

“I birthed him. I can carry him a little longer.”

He gave me the look that answer deserved. “That logic’s not as airtight as you think.”

Still, when he slid one arm under Jax, he did it with all the care of a man lifting something priceless and breakable at once. I let him take our son, and the second Jax settled against his chest, Priest’s face changed.

It always did.

Some piece of him the rest of the world would never get to see softened and went still. Watching it made my own chest ache, because we had almost lost all of this before it had even begun. That thought still lived too close to the surface, too easy to reach if I let myself go quiet too long. But standing there in that waiting house with afternoon light warming the floor and my son asleep in his father’s arms, fear no longer felt like the only true thing in the room.

“Why didn’t you ever live here?” I asked softly.

Priest glanced around as if he had to remember the answer for himself. “Didn’t see the point.”

Simple. Honest. More revealing than anything longer would have been.

I looked again at the clean counters and bare shelves, at the rooms that had never learned anyone’s habits because no one had stayed long enough to leave them. He had built a future and then stood outside it, waiting for a reason to step in.

“Well,” I said, moving closer and touching Jax’s tiny fist where it rested against Priest’s chest, “it has a point now.”

Something small and private shifted in his expression.

He kissed the top of our son’s head. “Yeah. It does.”

We spent another hour making the kind of progress that only looked small if you weren’t the one living inside it. Bottles found their way into the kitchen. Diapers ended up where diapers belonged. A few boxes made no sense at all, because whoever had packed the apartment had somehow put measuring cups with baby blankets and bibs with dish towels.

I moved slower than I liked, still healing in ways I tried not to think about too hard. Priest pretended not to hover while somehow appearing exactly where I needed him, which felt a lot like hovering with better timing.

By the time afternoon tilted toward evening, Jax had eaten and gone milk-drunk in Priest’s arms. I should have stayed home. My body knew that, judging by the ache that pulled low every time I stood too long.

But staying behind while everyone else started building the next piece of this new life felt impossible.

“I’m coming,” I said when Priest suggested checking on Lila and Evan without me.

He looked at me over Jax’s head. “Blue.”

“I know.” I reached for my bag. “I’m still coming.”

His mouth flattened with that specific frustration he saved for moments when he knew I was being stubborn and also knew he had no real argument left.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “If you’re hurting too bad, we leave.”

“That sounds suspiciously like hovering.”

“It’s not hovering if I’m right.”

I smiled despite myself. “That confidence is exhausting.”

He shifted Jax a little higher and headed for the door. “Good thing you love me.”

I didn’t answer, mostly because the man already looked far too satisfied with himself.

Tide Lofts sat in a newer part of Bay of Saints, where the roads were cleaner and the landscaping looked like someone was still trying to impress the brochure. The buildings were modern in a way the rest of town mostly wasn’t, with sharp balconies and stone accents under security lights that hadn’t had time to dull with weather.

Priest had called it a good place for Lila and Evan. Ghost had called it secure. Neither one of them had said much beyond that, which told me there were probably strings being pulled somewhere I wasn’t meant to see.

Seeing two moving trucks backed up near the curb made the place feel less like an apartment complex and more like a life being rearranged in public.

Protection dressed up as convenience.