Alex spent the morning treating his townhouse like a theme park.
He woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of someone rummaging through his pantry. When he finally made it to the kitchen, Alex was sitting on his counter in one of his old college shirts, dipping a donut into his favorite mug.
"You have the saddest selection of cereal I've ever seen," she announced.
"Morning to you too," he muttered, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
She kicked his knee affectionately. "You're a grown man, Cole. Buy something with a mascot."
"You're a grown woman," he shot back. "Stop eating like a raccoon."
She eyed him over the rim of her mug. "You love me."
"Debatable."
She stayed until late morning, cycling through his shower, his guest room, and his closet. When she finally slung a duffel over her shoulder, she kissed his cheek and said, "Hotel spa day. I've earned it. Try not to brood yourself into a coma while I'm gone."
"Can't make promises," he said.
"You never do," she replied.
An hour later, his phone buzzed.
Alex: I'm exhausted from relaxing. Send thoughts and prayers.
He snapped a picture of his half-finished canvas and replied: Die tired.
She sent back a photo of her feet in hotel slippers, a glass of something orange and bubbly in hand. Steam blurred the background.
Alexandra Constantine—warrior, cop, sister, complete menace. Today—creature of mimosas and eucalyptus steam.
The townhouse felt too quiet after she left, but in a way he welcomed it. Silence had edges, but at least it was honest.
By the time the sun slid down behind Purgatory's low skyline, painting the sky in fading violet, Cole had almost convinced himself the knot in his chest was just exhaustion.
That lie lasted until Amber's text came through.
Can I come by?
He stared at it, thumb hovering.
Nothing about last night had technically broken the rules of whatever they were, but rules were small comfort when your ribs still remembered the echo of someone else's energy thrumming through you.
He typed: Yeah. Door's open.
He didn't straighten the cushions. Didn't dim the lights, didn't pick a playlist to set a mood. The TV muttered quietly about crime dramas and car chases. He left it on for the noise.
The lock turned.
Amber stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Her hand remained clasped around the knob, not moving. She wore her dark hair in a simple knot, with soft makeup and a blouse tucked into dark jeans. She looked… casual.
Amber rarely did casual with him. Not when she came over at night.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she replied.
Her voice was softer than usual. Less velvet, more raw edge.
She walked toward him, heels murmuring against the hardwood. Each step felt measured, like she was rehearsing where to put her feet. By the time she reached the couch, he could feel her restraint buzzing around her like static.
She sat beside him, not touching at first. The distance between them was only a few inches, but those inches might as well have been miles.
"You okay?" he asked.
She gave a little half-laugh. "Loaded question."
"Would you like a less loaded one?" he tried.
She ignored that. After a moment, she exhaled and slid sideways into him, curling up against his chest like she always did, like she'd been doing for months. Her hair brushed his jaw. The familiar scent of citrus and spice curled around his senses.
For a second, his body remembered how simple it had been before last night.
She shifted, swung a leg across his lap, straddling him—a rehearsed choreography between them. Her hands slipped under his shirt, fingers warm against his skin.
They froze when they found the faint raised lines along his ribs.
Rowan's marks.
Amber's fingertips traced one, feather-light. Over the swell. Over the faint crescent. Her breath stuttered against his neck.
"Can we talk?" she whispered.
The question pulled the plug on the heat between them.
He swallowed. "Yeah."
She stayed where she was, perched on his lap, forehead resting against his shoulder like she was bracing for recoil.
"I owe you an apology," she said.
Guilt hit his senses like humidity—thick, impossible to ignore. She wasn't shielding. She wasn't masking anything.
"Why?" he asked quietly.
"You aren't mine," she whispered. "You've never asked me to be yours, never treated me like a possession. And I treated you like something I could… pass along when it suited me. Like I could hand you off to keep myself from feeling too much."
"Amber—"
"I made you feel disposable," she said, voice fraying. "And you're not. You've never been."
He cupped her face gently and tried to tilt her gaze up, but she resisted, lashes lowered.
"Look at me," he said.
She did. Her eyes were already thick with unshed tears.
"You didn't make me feel disposable," he said. "Every choice I made last night was mine."
"That doesn't absolve me," she whispered. "I know what I did. I watched my father parade people in and out of his life like they were nothing but leverage and entertainment. And the first time I felt insecure, I tried to manage my feelings the way he does—by shoving them onto someone else. By using you as a buffer."
The mention of Eoghan hammered something inside him into sharper focus.
"I asked you to tell me what you wanted," Cole reminded her. "You told me. I consented. There's a pretty enormous gap between that and what he does."
"I know," Amber said. "But intent doesn't erase impact. Last night, you weren't just some guy I sleep with. You never have been. And I still treated you like a problem I could outsource."
She slid off his lap as if her body had suddenly gotten too heavy and curled into the far corner of the couch, knees drawn up, arms looped loosely around them. For the first time since he'd known her, Amber Ryan looked small.
Her gaze flicked past him, toward the hallway.
"Is it in there?" she asked quietly.
He frowned. "Is what?"
"Whatever you painted last night."
He went still.
"Can I see it?" she asked.
Amber almost never asked. He'd brought her into his studio a handful of times, but she treated it like sacred ground—no stepping over the threshold unless invited.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Come on."
He stood and held out a hand. She took it, fingers cool and tentative, and followed him down the hall.
The studio smelled like it always did—turpentine, linseed oil, paper, and the faint earthy dust of canvases and old wood. Bookshelves and leaning paintings lined three walls, creating a scatter of color and shape that only he understood. The fourth wall comprised the big window and the easel.
Tonight, the space held its breath with them.
Amber stepped in slowly, taking in the chaos—faces half-finished, abstracts that looked like storms frozen mid-shatter, softer pieces tucked almost shyly behind the bolder ones.
"You made these since you moved?" she asked.
"Some of them," he said. "Some came with me."
She stopped in front of the newest canvas.
Yggdrasil towered across it—roots burrowed into a shadowed wash of dark blues and greens, trunk textured in warm browns and grays. Branches arched upward into a riot of golds and soft greens. The leaves burned with captured light.
Down the center of the trunk, cutting just off the axis, ran a single stark line of black, splitting the tree open like a healed wound re-torn.
Amber's hand lifted. She didn't touch the canvas, just hovered her fingers an inch from its surface, tracing the air along that black fracture.
"Oh," she breathed.
He felt the moment it clicked for her.
"This is how you process it," she whispered. "You don't talk. You paint."
"Sometimes," he said.
"You painted this after you left the gala," she murmured. "After her."
He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
She stepped back, one palm pressed to her own sternum like she needed to hold something in place.
A memory flickered in his mind, unbidden.
The night Shane left.
The studio had differed—different city, different walls, but the same gravity. His living room had smelled of her perfume and old takeout. One day, the scent just… stopped being there.
He'd come home to find half the closet empty. A row of hangers swinging gently, as if they already knew. A note on the counter that said I'm sorry in careful, apologetic loops.
He'd sat on the floor with his back to the couch, knees drawn up, wrists resting on them. He didn't cry. Didn't yell. Just stared at the stupid note until the letters blurred and reformed and blurred again.
The door had opened without his noticing. Amber had crossed the room without announcing herself. She'd taken in the note, the closet, the wrecked painting face-down near the easel. Then she'd sat on the floor beside him, leaving three inches of space between them.
She didn't touch him.
Not at first.
She just sat. Quiet. Present. A steady weight at his side while his mind replayed three years in loops.
Hours later—maybe—it had been Amber who moved first.
"You're going to get stiff if you stay like that," she'd whispered.
He'd snorted once. "I'm already stiff."
"Emotionally or physically?" she asked.
"Both."
She'd bumped her shoulder lightly against his. "At least you're efficient."
He'd laughed. Barely. A rough, broken sound.
She'd waited.
He didn't remember deciding to reach for a brush. But he did. He'd pushed himself up, walked to the easel, and started painting like all his bones had turned to wet clay.
An ocean—waves clawing at a dark shoreline, foam sharp as teeth. No boats. No horizon. Just motion and depth and the threat of being pulled under.
Amber had stayed on the floor, watching.
She hadn't asked him what it meant. She hadn't asked what Shane had said. He didn't explain the break in his chest to her.
She'd just said quietly, "It's beautiful," when he finally stepped back.
Something in him had loosened at that. Not fixed. Not healed. Just… loosened enough to take a breath without feeling like his ribs would crack.
Then she'd stood up, walked over, and brushed the back of her fingers along his forearm—light, careful, an offer instead of a demand.
"Want company tonight?" she'd asked. "No strings. Just… not being alone."
He'd nodded.
That had been the first time he had let her stay. The first time he had let her see him stripped of performance. The first night he slept with someone in his bed and didn't feel like he owed them anything beyond presence.
It had also been the first time he realized Amber had her own complicated relationship with leaving.
Now, in Purgatory, in a different studio with different ghosts, Amber stared at the fractured tree with the same expression she'd worn looking at the ocean years ago, but this time, pain shaded the admiration.
"You came home last night and broke a world in half," she whispered. "And I was the one who shoved you toward the edge."
"Amber—"
"I watched you connect with her," she whispered. "Really connect. And instead of asking you how it made you feel, I made a joke. I turned you into something to prove I was untouchable."
"Every choice was mine," he said. "You didn't force me into anything."
"That doesn't absolve me," she said. "I know how you carry things. I've seen it. Shane broke your heart, and you painted an ocean. You paint a tree split down the center when I showed up at your house."
She closed her eyes briefly. "And I still pushed."
The name hung between them now, unspoken and heavy.
"You've been thinking about her," Amber whispered. "Shane."
He exhaled through his nose. "Sometimes."
"Does last night feel like that?" she asked.
He thought about it.
"No," he said honestly. "Shane walked away. You walked toward me and just… stumbled."
A sharp, broken laugh escaped her. "That might be the kindest way anyone has ever described my emotional decisions."
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"I almost told you something last night," he said.
Amber went still. "What?"
He hesitated, fingers curling around the back of a nearby chair.
How did he explain the way his gift had reacted to Rowan? The way their energies had collided and harmonized was like striking the exact right note on an instrument? The way he'd felt her excitement feeding his, looping back and forth until he wasn't sure where his desire ended and hers began?
How did he tell Amber that her worst fear—that he'd connected with Rowan more deeply than he meant to—wasn't wrong… but also wasn't simple?
"I wanted to tell you more about what I can do," he said finally. "About how it really works. About why last night was… dangerous."
"You think I can't handle it?" she asked.
"I think you're already beating yourself up for things that aren't entirely yours to carry," he said. "If I drop this on you now, tonight becomes about whether you're strong enough to hear it instead of about what you're already going through."
She stared at him for a long moment. Her eyes were red, but steady.
"That's infuriatingly reasonable," she muttered.
"Fits my brand," he said.
She let out a soft sound that might've been a laugh. Her shoulders slumped a little. "Okay," she said. "Then tell me this…did you want her more than you want me?"
He didn't flinch at the question. "No," he said. "I wanted her differently. That's what scared me."
Amber swallowed. "Because it felt… out of control."
"Yes."
"That's how it looked from the outside," she admitted. "Like something in you woke up and reached for her without asking your permission."
"It did," he mumbled.
Her lip trembled. "And instead of asking if you were okay, I treated you like a resource. Like my father would."
He stepped closer, catching her wrists gently.
"You are not your father," he said.
Tears finally slipped down her cheeks. "I felt like him. That's the part I can't forgive myself for. He barters people. He uses charm and guilt and obligation like tools. And last night, I…"
She broke off, shaking her head.
"I don't want to become him," she whispered. "Even in the smallest ways. Even by accident."
"You won't," Cole said. "Because you noticed. Because you care enough to be horrified by it. He never has."
She let out a ragged breath.
"I need space," she said. "Not because I want to walk away. I don't. God, I really don't. But if I stay this close while I feel like this, I'm going to perform again. I'm going to smile and make jokes and pretend I'm not ashamed, and then I'll never fix it."
"I understand," he said.
"I don't want to lose you," she added quickly. "This—" she gestured between them, helpless— "whatever we are, I need it. I just… I need to know I'm not poisoning it without realizing."
"You're not," he said. "But if space is what you need, take it. I'll still be here."
"That's what scares me," she said with a weak smile. "You're so damn steady. It makes me realize how much of me is smoke."
"You're more stone than you think," he said.
She stepped into him then, closing the gap, arms sliding around his waist. He held her without thinking about it, chin resting briefly on the top of her head.
"I remember that night," he murmured. "When Shane left."
Amber's fingers curled against his back.
"You didn't attempt to fix me," he said. "You just sat there while I broke. I've never forgotten that."
"What's your point?" she asked, voice muffled against his chest.
"My point is, you've been steady for me in more ways than one misstep could erase."
She made a small, wrecked sound. "Now you're just being unfair," she muttered. "Saying nice things when I'm trying very hard to hate myself."
He huffed a faint laugh. "Sorry."
She pulled back, wiped her face with the heel of her hand, then rose on her toes to kiss him.
It wasn't hungry, nor heated. It was slow, aching, and full of all the things they weren't ready to say.
When they parted, she kept her hands cradling his jaw, thumbs resting lightly near his ears. "This still feels like goodbye," she whispered.
"It doesn't have to be," he said.
"It still feels like it," she repeated. "At least the end of… this version of us."
He didn't argue.
She stepped away, walked to the doorway, then turned back.
"Sweetling?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry," she breathed. "For what I did. And for what I almost made you lose in yourself."
He swallowed. "I know. And… thank you. For seeing it."
She nodded once, then left.
The door closed with its usual soft click. It sounded louder than it had that morning.
Cole stood in the hall for a long moment, fingers curled loosely at his sides, letting the silence settle.
The house felt different now. Not empty—just… rearranged. Like someone had shifted all the furniture an inch to the left.
He walked back into the studio.
Yggdrasil waited, split and stubborn on the canvas. The black fracture down its trunk seemed deeper in the dim light.
He picked up a brush without really deciding to. Dipped it into a dark, rich green. Not black this time. Something that could go either way, depending on how much he thinned it.
Carefully, he followed the jagged edge of the fracture, shading around it—transforming the harsh line into something that resembled shadow…or fresh growth.
Maybe both.
His chest still hummed with the echo of Rowan's wild energy, faint but present. His throat tightened with the memory of Amber's voice, of Shane's note on a counter hundreds of miles away.
The tree on the canvas held, even broken.
Cole stepped back, brush hanging loosely in his fingers.
"Hold together," he murmured, not sure if he meant the painting, himself, or the people orbiting his life.
Outside, rain started in a light, steady patter against the window—gentle, unhurried, a sound he'd always found calming.
Tonight, it just made the studio feel like a world apart.
He let it be.
For now, it was enough that the tree was still standing.