Conley took the photograph and held it as if weighing whether to look at it in front of us. He did—slowly—and when he looked back up his eyes were damp. “Thank you,” he said softly.
The gesture, the softness, the quiet—that was the part of him that made me ache. I wanted him to be whole, to be complete without needing the filling he sought in old memories. But craving is a strange animal; you can’t always starve it out.
When Angel left, she kissed both of us on the cheek—an intimate triad that felt ceremonial. She stepped into the night and the mansion exhaled. Conley led me to the bedroom with a determination that felt like recovery. Once inside, he closed the door, turned, and swept me up against the wall, devouring my mouth. The kiss was a reclamation—no witnesses, no public choreogra
