You can just heal." Emily didn't know what to do with that. She heard the words and they didn't fit anywhere in her. Earning things was the only currency she'd ever known.
Cole put her up in a spare room over the shop so she wouldn't have to climb the stairs at her apartment and so somebody would be around. He framed it as practical. It's just easier this way. Don't make it a thing. But Emily knew and he knew. She knew that it was so she wouldn't be alone.
The guys took shifts without ever calling them shifts. Reese would show up with groceries and pretend he'd bought too much for himself. Cody would come by and ask her to help him understand some engine problem half of them invented just so she'd have something to do with her hands and her mind. While her body healed, Marcus fixed the loose step outside her door without being asked and never mentioned it.
And it was in the middle of all this kindness that Emily started to come apart. It came out sideways the way it does. She snapped at Cody one afternoon over nothing. He tried to carry her toolbox and she'd bitten his head off and she saw the hurt flash across the kid's face and she felt sick with herself and she couldn't explain it. She started sleeping badly. She'd wake up at 3:00 in the morning with her heart going and no idea why.
One night, Reese came up with dinner and found her sitting in the dark not eating it. And when he asked her what was wrong, she said nothing. And he'd learned enough by now to know that Emily saying nothing was the loudest alarm bell in the building. He told Cole.
And Cole, who did not have a subtle bone in his body, came up the stairs the next morning sat down across from her and said, "All right, what's going on with you?" Nothing's going on with me, Emily. I'm fine, Cole. The leg's healing. Portoris says I'm ahead of schedule. The claim went through.
I've got everything I need. I'm fine.
You bit Cody's head off. You're not sleeping. Reese says you're not eating. Cole leaned forward, elbows on his knees. You want to tell me what's got a woman who fixed my Harley on a busted leg jumping out of her skin at 3:00 in the morning now that everything's finally going right?
And that was it. That was the thing she couldn't say. And he'd said it for her and she felt it crack open in her chest. Because everything's going right, Emily said. Cole waited.
"You don't get it," she said, and her voice was starting to come apart. "I don't I don't know how to do this, any of this. I know how to fight. I know how to get through a bad thing. I know how to hurt and keep going and not let it show I'm good at that. I've been good at that my whole life."