[Floris’ POV]
I want to tell him to leave.
I have a whole script ready—I'm fine, really, go back to bed, this is embarrassing, please forget you ever saw me crying like a broken faucet at two in the morning.
The words are lined up in my throat like soldiers ready for deployment, and then I make the mistake of looking at his face.
That stubborn set to his jaw. The way he's planted himself on the edge of my bed like he's prepared to grow roots and become permanent furniture. Green eyes steady on mine, not pitying, not pushing—just present.
Immovably, infuriatingly present.
The words die in my throat. Every single one of them, casualties of his refusal to give me an easy exit.
He doesn't ask questions. Doesn't demand explanations or fill the silence with platitudes about how everything will be okay. He just sits there, solid and patient, like he's got all night and nowhere better to be than watching me fall apart.
Somehow, that's worse than if he'd demanded answers. His silence leaves space—too much space—and my carefully constructed walls start crumbling into it like sandcastles meeting tide.
"My father was a drunk." The words escape before I can stop them, rough and raw. "Not the fun kind. Not the 'tells embarrassing stories at parties' kind. The other kind. The kind that made our house feel like a war zone with better furniture."
Maverick doesn't move. Doesn't react. Just waits.
"I learned to read his moods before I learned to read books," I continue, and the confession comes in fragments now—halting sentences, long pauses he doesn't try to fill. "The sound of his car in the driveway. The particular weight of his footsteps. Whether the first thing he reached for was the refrigerator or the liquor cabinet."
"Floris…"
"The night of the accident, I was twelve." I cut him off because if I stop now, I'll never start again. "Passenger seat. He'd picked me up from a friend's house, and I knew… I knew the second I got in the car that something was wrong. The smell of whiskey was so strong I could taste it. But what was I supposed to do? I was twelve."
The memories crash over me—headlights too bright, the screech of tires that still echoes in my nightmares, the world spinning and shattering.
"He died on impact," I say quietly. "I spent two months in the hospital learning how to walk again. The doctors kept calling me lucky, which is a funny word for someone who'd just had her life rearranged by her father's inability to put down a bottle."
I push back the blanket before I can talk myself out of it—let him see the map of damage carved into my thigh and hip. Silver lines catching the low light, raised and permanent. Evidence of a childhood that tried very hard to kill me.
Maverick's expression is unreadable as his gaze travels over the scars. Then, slowly, deliberately, he reaches out and traces one with his finger. The touch is gentle, almost reverent.
The silence stretches. I wait for the pity, the careful sympathy, the soft words meant to comfort that always somehow make everything worse.
"Good thing he's dead," he says finally.
I blink. Of all the responses I'd expected, that wasn't even on the list. It's not comforting. It's not soft. It's dark and blunt and carries an undercurrent of violence that probably should concern me more than it does.
Instead, something in my chest loosens. Finally—someone who isn't trying to find the silver lining in the wreckage. Someone who understands that some things don't need to be reframed or forgiven.
"Yeah," I breathe. "It really is."
His hand is still on my thigh, warm and steady over the scar tissue. Neither of us moves to change that.
"What about you?" I ask, because turnabout is fair play and I've just handed him my darkest chapter. "Any tragic backstory you'd like to share? Family skeletons? Childhood trauma? I've shown you mine."
His jaw tightens—there it is, the deflection I expected. "My family isn't particularly interesting."
"Liar." I push gently, the way you'd push a door you suspect is unlocked. "You have that look. The one that says 'I have emotional baggage but I've organized it very neatly so no one notices.'"
"I don't have a look."
"You absolutely have a look. It's very brooding. Tell me I'm wrong."
He's quiet for a long moment. Then:
"My parents divorced when I was young. Neither of them particularly wanted custody—I was more of an inconvenience than a priority. My grandfather stepped in because someone had to, and he raised me the way you'd raise a promising investment. With expectations, conditions and quarterly performance reviews."
The words come out flat, clinical—like he's reading a quarterly report instead of describing his childhood.
No self-pity, no requests for sympathy. Just facts.
"Let me guess," I say softly. "Love was transactional. Approval had to be earned. And somewhere along the way, you learned that emotions were exploitable weaknesses."
His eyes meet mine, old wounds flickering in their depths. "Something like that."
"That's terrible…" I don't dress it up or soften it. He didn't soften mine. "For what it's worth, I think your parents and your grandfather are idiots. Anyone who looked at you and saw a business acquisition instead of a person worth loving has spectacularly poor judgment."
"You've known me for weeks."
"Long enough to know you teach chess to insomniac flight attendants and save clumsy women from New York City traffic." I reach out and take his hand—the one that traced my scars.
"Also, you brought me cookies. Well, I did, but you returned the plastic container you could have easily thrown away. That's peak emotional availability, whether you admit it or not."
He doesn't pull away. His fingers curl around mine, intertwining slowly, like he's giving me time to change my mind. I don't.
The silence sits between us—not awkward, but heavy. Full of everything we've just exchanged, all the broken pieces we've shown each other. I've never told anyone the full story. Not even Gemma knows about the specific texture of those memories, the way whiskey still makes my stomach turn.
What is more confusing and uncomfortable to realize—when Maverick drinks whiskey, when I sense that particular smell on him (in very little dosage, mind you)—I don’t feel terrified. Just relaxed. Just safe.
But I told him. And he's still here, holding my hand like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"You should sleep," he says eventually, voice rough. "It's late."
"Will you stay?" The question escapes before I can stop it, vulnerable in a way I usually hide better. "I know we said separate rooms, and this probably violates several clauses of our very professional arrangement, but—"
"I'll stay."
He shifts, arranging himself on the bed beside me with careful precision. I curl into his warmth, our fingers still intertwined, and feel something fundamental settle in my chest.
"For the record," I murmur against his shoulder, "this is significantly better than crying alone."
"Low bar."
"You'd be surprised how many people fail to clear it."
His arm tightens around me. "Sleep, Floris."
I close my eyes, wrapped in warmth and the impossible reality of this moment—having given each other more than either of us intended, and somehow being okay with that. Our fingers stay intertwined as sleep pulls me under. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, the nightmares don't follow.