Page 13 of Bloom in Darkness

“That’s because you haven’t seen him around fighters who refuse to listen. Give him someone making the same mistake six times in a row and suddenly he discovers whole paragraphs.”

I’m still smiling when I leave the bathroom and climb into bed without bothering to straighten anything. The sheets are rumpled from last night, and when I turn my face toward the pillow, Bryn’s scent is still caught in the cotton. I breathe it in and settle deeper into bed.

Caelan goes quiet for a few seconds before asking again, “You sure you’re okay?”

I pick at a loose thread near the edge of the sheet. “I said I was. You don’t believe me?”

“I think you called Bryn for a reason.”

He isn’t accusing me of anything, which somehow makes it harder to brush off. I curl onto my side and pull the sheet over my hip. “Nothing happened. I just wanted something to get my mind off tonight.” My skin is still warm from the bath, but underneath it the first faint jitter has started again, small enough that I can pretend I don’t notice. “The dancing does this thing sometimes. I get all the way up there and everything feels easy for a while. Then the set ends, and I come home, and it’s like my body didn’t get told we were done.”

Caelan is quiet for a moment before saying, “I get that.”

I frown into the pillow. “You do?”

“After fights. Everything gets loud and fast, and your body thinks it can keep going forever until suddenly it can’t.” Some of the teasing leaves his voice. “That crash can be ugly.”

My fingers twitch against the sheet. I curl them into the fabric until they stop moving and drag the blanket higher over my shoulder. “Yeah,” I say. “That.”

Another bell sounds, and for a few seconds I listen to the Forge erupt around him while the warmth from the bath slowly leaves my skin.

“Want to hear something that’ll give you a little leverage with Bryn?” Caelan asks, amusement creeping back into his voice.

“That depends. How bad?”

“The first time he ever got knocked down, he spent six months denying it happened. There was video.”

I smile against the pillow. “Please tell me you still have it.”

“Of course I still have it.” Caelan snorts and then covers up the sound with a cough. “I bring it out when I need to win a conversation because he has the most adorable pout. I need the ammo.” I laugh as he continues, going on a tangent that doesn’t require any input from me.

Caelan tells me about Lorcan nearly getting banned from a gym because he climbed into the ring before the bell, then about a fighter who insisted he could finish with a broken hand and cried when the medic reset one finger afterward. By the time he gets to someone arguing about wraps, I’m tucked deeper beneath the blanket with my knees drawn up and Bryn’s scent under my cheek.

Somewhere along the way the fight stories turn into work. Caelan complains about paperwork, then a vendor, then somebody who apparently cannot understand the concept of a deadline no matter how many times Caelan gives him one. I lose track of the names before I lose the sound of his voice, which stays low and steady while my eyelids get heavier.

The phone slips from my hand onto the pillow. I leave it there on speaker instead of picking it back up, Caelan’s voice softer now beneath the distant noise of the Forge. “Fuck, sorry, Astra. I just kind of lost track of time.”

A small laugh slips out. “No, it’s okay. Your voice is very soothing. Um, you don’t have to tell Bryn to call me. I’m okay now. Talking to you helped.”

“I’m glad.”

I pull the blanket higher and tuck my face deeper into Bryn’s pillow. “You can keep talking if you want.”

Caelan laughs under his breath. “I wasn’t planning on hanging up.”

I smile as he starts again, going back to the next fight, someone’s stance and someone else’s habit of leading with his chin, but I can’t hold onto the details anymore.

“Caelan?”

He pauses mid-story. “Yeah?”

I tuck my face deeper into the pillow. “Thank you.”

His answer comes softer this time. “Anytime, Astra.”

He starts talking again, but I’m asleep before I hear the end.

Bryn