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Hearing what that son of a bitch did to Bellamy makes me sick to my stomach. The thought of his ex-husband making him believe that he wasn’t good enough has my blood way past boiling and my guts twisting into knots.

I wipe the rest of his tears from his face, cradling his cheeks in my hands. I’m too fucking angry to think of anything other than what that asshole did to him, the anger settling slick and hot in my gut, my vision pulsing black at the edges.

“I need you to listen to me,” I growl. “That piece of shit didn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, to walk the same ground as you.”

A fresh wave of tears swims in his eyes, and I’m so fucking ready to catch them—like I should have been doing this whole time.

“And you are wanted, okay?” I yank his head forward, maybe a little too roughly, and press a kiss onto his brow bone. His hands find my forearms, clutching them desperately. “I want to be by your side—in any way you need. If that’s just support and friendship, well, then I’ll be a lucky man. Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life and I’ll spend every day making it up to you.”

“Sunday…” he mumbles, pulling back to look at me with his red, swollen eyes. I always hated my dumb name, but the sound of it coming out of his mouth…it’s right. It’s so fucking right.

His gaze drops to my lips, roaming over the curve of my Cupid’s bow, settling on the small holes where my lip piercings used to be. He’s so wrung out, I don’t think he even realizes his hand has drifted up to run a finger over them.

“Bellamy,” I whisper, pressing a chaste kiss to his fingertip in a moment of weakness. My hands move to settle on his hips, keeping the pressure light.

I take a moment to drink him in, marveling at how his hair curls and kisses the high points of his cheeks, at the tiny, nearly invisible freckles on his nose. His eyes are stunning, even though they’re red-rimmed.

The moment stretches, and I know what’s going to happen. I have only seconds to make the decision to turn away as he lurches forward.

It’s not because I don’t want him. Hell, I want him so badly I’m shaking with it. But it wouldn’t be right for me to take that kiss from him, not when he’s on the tail end of a breakdown. I know it’s going to compound everything he’s feeling, all the abandonment and crumbling self-worth, but it’s the right thing to do.

“You’re too vulnerable to make decisions right now, Bels,” I say as diplomatically as I can, but it doesn’t stop his bottom lip wobbling. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“I’m never thinking straight,” he says with a watery laugh. He doesn’t say it, but I think he knows I’m right. If we ever end up going down that road again, it needs to be when he’s got a clear head. He needs to rest now.

We untangle ourselves from each other, and the last of his energy leaves him, his body collapsing sideways into the back of the couch.

I leave him to compose himself, grabbing some drinks to go with our dinner.

The pizza girl has impeccable timing, arriving five minutes later. I open my apartment door and wedge a boot in the gap so I don’t have to worry about my keys, jogging down the internal stairwell to greet her. She looks young enough to be in college, so I give her a hefty tip, which she tries to refuse.

“You keep it. I don’t need it,” I tell her, and she concedes, hopping back on her bike.

The boxes are warm in my hands, the delicious scent of gooey cheese and grease wafting into my nostrils. It’s easy to blame my ravenous hunger on the dizziness that makes the steps wobble as I walk up them.

When I reach the short hallway, that dizziness pulses hard, sending my shoulder crashing into the wall. I screw my eyes shut, willing it to stop.

Pathetic.

My eyes fly wide as I spin, looking for the source of the voice. I nearly drop the pizza boxes, squashing a corner of one on the wall when I turn back the other way.

No one.

Nothing.

It’s all in my head.

I glance at the obsidian bracelet twined around my wrist.

Child’s play.

I shake my head, as if I can dislodge the voice echoing through my mind. I haven’t smoked today, so I can’t even blame it on that.

I move back to my apartment door, kicking my boot out of the way and letting the door fall closed with a resounding click. Weirdly enough, the buzzing in my head settles. Maybe it’s something to do with that herby smoke shit Bellamy swirled everywhere earlier.

Maybe I should tell him about the voices and my reflection. My mouth opens on a half-formed question, but I stop when I see him curled up on my window seat, knees tucked up to his chest, head tipped against the windowpane. The orange light of the dipping sun casts his tired face in an ethereal glow, making his already gold eyes look…well, supernatural.

He makes me breathless without even trying. I’m so stunned by his beauty that it calms my unsettled feelings enough that I almost forget about the voices I keep hearing.